Anglogold Ashanti PLC (AU) 2026 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good day ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Anglogold Ashanti PLC Q3 2026 results. (Operator Instructions) Please note that this event is being recorded.

I will now hand the conference over to Mr. Stewart Bailey. Please go ahead.

Thanks very much, Maria, and welcome everybody to Anglogold Ashanti's Q3 2026 earnings results. As usual, you have the full executive team here. A presentation will be given by Alberto and Gillian, and we'll take questions immediately after. Please note at the beginning of the presentation is the safe harbor statement. Which has important information regarding forward-looking statements. I'd urge you please to spend some time to look at that.

And without any further ado, I'll hand over to Alberto.

Thank you, Stewart. I will start, as we always do, with safety. We report with great sadness, the loss of a colleague in an underground rockfall at the Sukari mine in August. We extend our deepest condolences to his family and loved ones and to his coworkers.

Following the incident, we obviously immediately suspended operations to investigate alongside authorities that lasted several weeks and to review critical risk procedures with all the side teams. Operations have resumed, and we're actively implementing the key learnings across the group. We have made tremendous strides, however, in safety in recent years.

And a tragedy of this nature underscores the need to redouble our efforts in this regard as we work to ensure every one of our people leaves work safe and well each day. Before we go into the portal, let's take a step back and look at the year-to-date performance. As we look across the first nine months of the year, the business has really showed its quality and resilience.

In spite of headwinds, generating strong earnings, particularly strong cash flows. Production through September, after stripping out the sales of Serra Grande, was almost flat on the year, around 2.2 million ounces. And also, we've had good cost performance. If you, in the end, it's what we always say, we control what we can control. The others affect everybody, inflation, royalties, fuel prices. That has been significant, but that's the controllables. But when you look at our non-controllables in the managed operations, if we focus on that, year-to-date costs have actually gone down by about $75 an ounce. And that is what has happened year after year in the last five years.

You see once again strong growth in EBITDA and earnings comfortably outstripping the rise in the gold price. Free cash flow also increased substantially. We've made sure that shareholders see the full benefit of that and see it right away with over $1 billion in dividends declared over the last nine months. As we look into Q3, there was production impact. Basically, we had. Three issues that are probably more than what we are accustomed to. But the key takeaway from this is that the operational challenges we encountered in Q3 were isolated and temporary. They were in three operations: the flooding of our main high-grade 2C pit, there was flow from the neighboring Tarkwa mine. Uncontrolled flow into that 2C pit, and that really affected the Q3. We lost about, not lost, but we could not produce about 24,000 ounces. Again, the good news is that has been dewatered, and we expect a much stronger therefore.

The second one is Obuasi. There was the consequences of the lack of the KMS shaft. Also, we had to move people into other areas after the fatality and well, that caused unintended consequences and operational issues, basically hangups in (inaudible) Fortunately, they're now cleared and we had probably the best month we had this year in the month of October. And we again expect close to analyze 300,000 in the fourth quarter of the year. And then Sukari, as a follow-up of this tragic fatality, we stopped underground operations and that has all sorts of impacts on it. Actually, if you compare it to Q3, 2025, we were able to produce 30,000 ounces less.

Again, so we are back now on, let's say, normal grounds on the three of them. This is the advantage of large corporations on the UCD positive. We had a standout performance in Siguiri, which added 19,000 ounces in the year. Productions at Cuiabá, at Kibali and Sunrise Dam were 6% higher and CVSA was higher. But all of this just to say that we expect to be for the full year very close to the midpoint of the guidance, and that's probably the most important thing.

Cash costs for the group were 1,534 an ounce and the macro, most of it is the macro. It's the royalties, it's the fuel, it's the broad infection, inflation, it is FX. When you strip out of that, we're basically flat in the cost that we can control for Q3. Obviously, there is some impact of the lower production because of the denominator effect.

But you have it all in all, you look at the free cash flow generation for Q3, $722 million was very strong. This is especially when you look at it on a relative basis with our peers. If you want to have metrics like free cash flow per share, we're probably on Q quarter and quarter, we're probably again at the top of the pack versus, let's say, our top four or five peers in the industry. And that's something that we look very closely. In the end, it all goes into the strongest free cash flow per share or per whatever metric that you per ounce. Okay.

So I won't spend much in the next slide. It's again, I've talked about the costs. So it just shows that we control very well the cost that we can and then we just flow with the macro. I think I'll skip to the next slide there.

Our Tier 1 assets are the core growth and cash engine of the group. Together, they account for more than 70% of total production and cash margins of 68%. These assets hold around 80% of our minimal reserves, underscoring the structural long-term quality of our global portfolio. Our Tier 2 assets are nothing to sneeze at. They remain reliable cash generators, delivering a solid 54% margin.

With them, we focus on operational discipline and cost competitiveness. This combined asset structure provides superior cash flow leverage to the higher gold price environment while maintaining the quality foundation needed to keep us firmly on track for full year guidance. When we look at our overall capital allocation framework, it continues to work as intended.

Our portfolio is very well capitalized and year-in-a-year is performing to plan. Our balance sheet is stronger ever. We're delivering sector-leading returns with one of the industry's most attractive yields. We've shown an investor-forward approach with more frequent dividend payments. In April, we executed a buyback of our outstanding bonds, retiring almost $700 million of long-term debt. That provides a clear improvement in our strategic flexibility, and it positions us well to deploy excess liquidity into a 2 billion open market share buyback program for the next years.

All require regulatory approvals were finally received at the end of the quarter. So stepping back, we made good progress towards our goal of creating a business with a predictable operating base, a strong project pipeline, and a balance sheet that will stand us in good stead in whatever market we encounter. It is worth having a quick reminder of our dividend policy.

It provides for a quarterly payout of $12.5 a share or around $63 million, happens whatever happens. It also provides for an annual true-up to 50% of free cash flow. Given the strength and predictability of our cash flows, we've used our discretion to make that payment quarterly. So for Q3, we have declared a dividend of $361 million.

This takes the year-to-date dividend to just over $1.3 billion, well ahead of where we were at that time last year and around three times what we paid in all of 2024. It's one of the most generous yields in the sector, alongside a program to invest in our existing portfolio and to advance our organic green and brownfield growth projects.

With that, I'll hand over to Gillian to walk us through the financials.

Thank you, Alberto. On free cash flow, we generated $722 million during the third quarter, bringing our year-to-date total to $2.6 billion, compared to $920 million in the third quarter of 2025. This performance reflects lower sales volumes.

Partially offset by higher realized gold prices alongside a planned 45% increase in total CapEx to $497 million. On the macro, it's clear to see from the reporting so far this quarter that our industry has faced particularly strong cost pressures this year.

US CPI increased to 3.7% in September, up from 3% a year earlier. A rise of more than a third in Brent crude prices was the primary driver of the increase in energy and other input costs. Our internal realized inflation rate, reflecting CPI trends across our operating base, currently sits just above 6%.

Global inflation trends diverged as some jurisdictions experienced cooling, while others faced persistent localized economic pressures. As Alberto has said, we're countering these inflationary pressures with an aggressive focus on internal cost-saving measures. Turning to our financial results, we've delivered strong earnings growth in cash returns, all while further strengthening the balance sheet.

Basic earnings per share rose 17% year-over-year to $0.154, up from $0.132 in Q3 of 2025. EBITDA rose 12% to $1.6 billion, driven by higher realized gold prices, stronger Kibali joint venture earnings and lower legacy tailings costs.

These gains were partially offset by lower sales volumes and market-driven inflationary cost pressures across labor, contractor rates, fuel and royalties. In line with our planned reinvestment schedule, CapEx increased 45% year-on-year to $563 million for Q3, with $352 million in sustaining capital and $211 million allocated for growth.

Notwithstanding this increased investment, higher taxes and lower sales, we deliver $722 million in free cash flow. Earnings for the quarter were just under $800 minimum. Backed by this overall performance, our balance sheet continued to strengthen and we closed the quarter in a net cash position of just under $1.3 billion an increase of more than $1 billion from the end of September last year. Cash cost year-to-date increased by 20% year-on-year to $1,467 an ounce versus $1,224 per ounce in the same period last year.

Inflation, fuel, royalties and FX changes collectively added around $201 per ounce or 16% to that cost base. Q3 was our lowest production quarter for the year for the reasons we've laid out already which impacted our fixed cost absorption. This volume increased the controllable portion of the total cash costs across our managed shops for the nine months by $39 an ounce.

The reverse will be true in Q4 as volumes recover, keeping full year cash cost guidance intact. Of course, we continue to look for opportunities to improve efficiencies and protect our margins. A stronger gold price environment provided us a substantial tailwind contributing to $2.3 billion in cash flows.

This was partly offset by lower sales volumes, which reduced revenue by 444 million. On the cost side, operating expenditures increased due to higher labor and contractor rates alongside increased reagent service and fuel costs. These increases were partially mitigated by higher by-product revenues and reduced spend on legacy tailings facilities.

Higher earnings resulted in higher tax outflow of $619 million for the period. At the same time, CapEx stepped up in line with our planned reinvestment across the asset base, funding waste stripping campaigns, fleet upgrades and continued work in North Bullfrog and Arthur projects in Nevada.

We are pleased to reaffirm annual guidance based on our stated assumptions, underscoring our portfolio's robustness and improving operational performance heading into our final quarter of 2026. And with that, I'll hand back to Alberto.

Thank you, Julian. By optimizing existing operations and leveraging established infrastructure, we are targeting a clear de-risk pathway to add more than 400,000 ounces of annual gold production by the end of 2029. As I have promised the market in Q3, we're going to give you quite a lot of detail in the next slides about these growth projects. So this is driven by an additional 130,000 ounces at Obuasi as it rumps up 100,000 ounces in Siguiri, 100,000 ounces in Gaeta, and 75,000 ounces in Cuiaba. When we also layer the initial 80,000 ounces expected from North Bullfrog, our near-term growth, very near-term growth is close to 500,000 ounces.

You'll notice that we've not included Sukari in these plans. This is taking a little longer than we've anticipated as we look first at optimizing the current mine plan. We're almost redrawing up in it completely. We will deliver that plan next year and tell you more about it once this work concludes. The benchmarking chart on the right illustrates why this strategy is so powerful for our balance sheet. Because we're expanding footprints where we already operate, our combined brownfield pipeline sits at the lowest end of the industry cost curve for capital intensity. While [North Bullfrog] inherently carries a higher initial capital intensity as a new strategic build, it is worth remembering that it will improve the capital efficiency of our Nevada portfolio.

Ultimately, this program is about high conviction capital allocation. We have to evaluate these projects against our official long-term real price assumptions of $3,000 per ounce. As measured against that baseline, this combined growth portfolio delivers very significant returns.

As you will see, we'll talk about the returns of the most capital intensive project, which is Gaeta, and those returns are north of 35% real IR. Obviously, all the other projects that have significantly less CapEx would deliver even more returns. So these are all no-brainer, very high return projects.

So let's start with Cuiaba. Our strategy is to unlock spare capacity at the Queiroz Metallurgical Plant. We are targeting production growth of approximately 75,000 ounces per annum for a total estimated capital spend of between 200 million and 250 million. This growth is mainly driven by two key projects. First, the safe restart of CDS. This is very important, we will not run this complete standalone operation.

Instead, this will be run at a much-reduced footprint, mainly to mine the ore while leveraging the more efficient processing capacity of Queiroz plant. If we used to have in CDS days 2,800 people and autoclaves and all the processing, this will be about 800 people, no autoclaves and all the processing in the more efficient Queiroz plant. So this is again a very high return and efficient use of that CDS where we were also spending about $35 million in care and maintenance, which obviously we will save that money. It creates a swing in cash flows with our projected cash flows replacing roughly, sorry, 50 million of care and maintenance costs each year. Preparation is well advanced for a targeted Q1 2027 startup.

CDS is projected to provide an additional 800,000 ounces per annum, yielding 50,000 to 60,000 ounces and driving a 30% increase to baseline production. Second, we're addressing productivity and lifetime mine infrastructure at the Cuiaba Underground Mine. We're investing approximately 150 million into deep level infrastructure, specifically ventilation, refrigeration, and paste fill. We're also progressing studies on material handle optimization. This targets a combined ore feed of 1.9 million tons per annum from the Cuiaba and Lamego underground.

Gaeta. Moving to Gaeta, we are targeting reserve growth to extend the mine life and scale output. So we want to have about 10 years of reserve. We're also targeting approximately 100,000 ounces of annual production growth. You will note our estimated capital expenditure is now somewhere in the range of $480 million to $580 million. This price tag more than we had initially flagged reflects a strategic pivot to a much larger mill expansion that significantly extends the life of the mine.

We progressed the study work and evaluated various throughput rates and technical configurations to determine the optimal processing rate as well as confirming the technical viability of the various options. The 3 million ton per annum processing rate was determined to be the optimal configuration. Afar from being the most value-accretive option, it also provides superior operational flexibility, have limited integration and shutdown impacts and allows for future modular expansion. It gives us the infrastructure to specifically process expanded ore resources we have identified.

Gaeta's growth plan is driven by three primary initiatives. First, we are targeting a 5-million-ounce mineral reserve by 2028 from an expanded drilling program at Nyamulilima Stage 5 and other high confidence open pit and underground targets across the lease. Second, to treat this expanded reserve, as I mentioned, we are commencing a feasibility study to add 3 million tons per annum of new processing capacity, increasing our total capacity from 5.5 million to 8.5 million tons per annum. This project is targeted for commissioning by late 2029 or early 2030 with a new line intended to unlock value in Nyamulilima Stage 5 while growing our lower grade stockpiles.

And third, the feasibility study for the pace plant at Nyakanga underground is nearing completion and we plan to move into the implementation phase next quarter. Targeted for commission in Q1 2028, this plant will help fast-track backfill and unlock high-grade pillars in the underground mine. Together, this initiative support our target to push Gaeta's long-term annual production to 600,000 ounces by the end of 2029 and into 2030. As you can see, this project has higher CapEx, but it also has a very significant IIR north of 35%.

Siguiri. Our objective is to unlock Siguiri's Tier 1 potential by developing additional full-grade ore sources to directly displace current marginal stockpile feed. We are targeting production growth of approximately 100,000 ounces per annum for a total estimated capital expenditure of around 17 million. This growth is driven by two near pit developments.

First is Block 3, which sits roughly 50 kilometers from Block 1. The whole road and infrastructure construction are nearing completion, with mining is expected to start by around year end and first gold targeted in the first half of next year. Block 3 is projected to add approximately 40,000 to 50,000 ounces per year over the next five years.

Operationally, this allows us to feed Block 3. At an average grade of 1.22 grams per ton, replacing half a gram material in the plant feed. Second is the Silakoro satellite pit, where we're currently finalizing land agreements and site separations. We expect to commence mining and target first sold from Silakoro late next year. This will provide an even higher grade feed at 1.64 grams per ton, further displacing the low grade ore sources.

Finally, to support our medium-term growth, we'll commence a pre-feasibility study next year to increase Siguiri's hard rock treatment capacity. This will provide the processing capacity needed to handle harder fresh rock over the longer-term to de-constrain the mining scheduling for additional full-grade bore.

Obuasi. At Obuasi, we continue to look for ways to de-risk this asset by building operational flexibility and redundancy to build consistency. We're targeting production growth of about 130,000 ounces per annum from last year's base of 260,000, so 400,000 ounces. We are driving this through three main structural challenges. First eliminating historical single point bottlenecks. You can see, hopefully you can see a small picture in it.

Today we are accessing Blocks 8 and 10 through one decline. The KMS shafts a little bit, but right now it's not working. So anything that happens there, we just have really one way out. So when things are good, like in October, where I said we produced mined ore, not produced ore, but mine ore was 30,000 ounces. But whenever there's a problem, well, when you only have one decline, you don't have any flexibility. What this plan shows is that we will expand this in '29 to four distinct areas of operation.

This congestion is critical for securing unimpeded ore delivery to the surface as we ran towards 400,000 ounce target.

To ensure the mill stays fed even if underground constraints arise, we're establishing alternative ore resources. So we're now evaluating and have a very advanced opening nearby open pit that has been identified. That would give about 25,000 ounces in 2027 and would go to, the plan is to 50,000 around '28.

We're also, the refurbishing of, if you look at the right, the shallower, higher-grade (inaudible) this is how you pronounce this, (inaudible) to establish safe access to additional mining areas through another decline by the first half of 2029. This provides flexibility while the main underground runs up.

And we're also advancing the deep decline on track to reach higher Block 11 next year. The Block 11, the KMS shaft was built fundamentally for Block 11, and Block 11 will almost exclusively be sort of operated through that KMS shaft. And so as you can see, that's the four sort of distinct areas of operation. That will give us much more flexibility than we have today by optimizing our development sequences and gaining early access via the KMS shaft.

So I just said that, so this will be a margin catalyst for the asset bringing in ore at about 50% higher grade than the average underground mine reserve grade. That's the 17 ounces grade of Block 11 that again is planned by the second-half of 2029.

So to conclude. Let me leave you with the four pillars to define our investment proposition. We've solved all of the temporary issue that would like the three issue that we have in Q3 that we are seeing a very strong Q4. That's why we are recommitting to guidance very close to the midpoint of the guidance in production. And guidance on all metrics.

Our balance sheet is exceptionally robust. We closed the quarter with $1.26 billion in net cash and $4.5 billion in liquidity buffer. The financial strength means our business is entirely self-funded and can comfortably cover our investment requirements. Which brings me to the third pillar, our high margin growth profile. We're advancing a low-risk organic pipeline that targets more than 400,000 ounces of additional annual production by 2029-2030. In parallel, our Tier 1 Nevada assets, Arthur Gold Project and North Bullfrog, are advancing steadily to secure a long-life production base in the US. And finally. We're fully committed to sector-leading capital returns. We've declared a $1.3 billion in dividends year-to-date, coupled with our $2 billion approved share buyback.

We have exceptional capital flexibility. Ultimately, our current valuation presents a significant opportunity to further re-rate. As we deliver on guidance, execute our high-margin growth catalyst and maintain our disciplined capital returns. We believe Anglogold Ashanti represents the most compelling investment proposition in the sector today with significant embedded upside.

With that, I will hand it over to the operator for questions.

(Operator Instructions)

I will now hand the conference over to Mr. Stewart Bailey to accommodate the written questions.

Thanks very much, Maria. Alberto, Gillian, maybe I'll start off just batching some of these questions by theme. Chris Reddy at All Weather Capital asks, can you confirm that all approvals were received to start the buyback?

And then David McKay at MiningMX asks, he says on the buybacks after some of the BlackRock comments a few months ago, have you found that view. With a bit of skepticism around buybacks, a popular one, or something that's more prevalent in the UK or the US? Could you just comment on that, please, those two?

Okay, so yeah, we did receive the final approval in September by the (inaudible) in South Africa, but we were in a closed period. And so now we have to, again, yeah, we have all the permissions to proceed. Look, we were -- we have always made it very clear that the main vehicle of distribution is through the dividends, that 50% of cash flow and we go usually to 60%, 65%. This is a much more opportunistic mechanism and it is much more biased to the downside than to the upside.

And so I obviously -- I've actually discussed this sometime with [Evie] and -- from BlackRock and I don't think it's inconsistent with what he said. I probably just because it needs to be a thoughtful process. It needs to be, you need to understand, yeah, if you're being value creative or not. But for us, again, this is not the main mechanism and that's the most important thing.

Great. Thanks, Alberto. Another one from David McKay at MiningMX. He just asked maybe for you to comment on the political climate in Ghana. And just are you seeing a more sort of interventionist stance from government there?

This is interesting. And David, thank you for your question. We get it a lot. We see -- I don't know, we see a difference -- our reality is different than the perception. I'm not saying there hasn't been changes, there were changes in royalties, but we have a very good communication with the government. We have a very good relationship, very constructive.

Yes, the royalties were increased, but also the COVID levy was decreased and that was a very inefficient, tax inefficient COVID levy. So when you do the sums and it's again, we were unhappy with the increase, but yeah, there was a very constructive discussion. There's constructive discussions right now, for example, with the desire of many countries of refining in country, but we find that done with the appropriate time. And then there's certifications and there's this sort of complexities that are involved in this. But with constructive discussions, you arrive at a very good place.

Probably the last thing I would mention, David, is we have our OObuasi, we have the lease until 2050 by memory, Iduapriem until 2035. So we have nothing coming up right now. And so when you put all of that into consideration. Again, our reality probably is a bit different than the perception.

Thanks, Alberto. The next one is from Patrick Jones at JPMorgan. He says the 300,000 to 450,000 ounce brownfield organic growth detailed today excludes Sukari, which was previously flagged as being part of the program.

Given that the three projects that we've mentioned today alone now offer somewhere in that range. Can we assume that a Sukari expansion would take this brownfield's growth potential even higher, closer to 500,000? Or will it be more about replacement of existing production there?

Look, we -- I don't want to anticipate because what we are doing right now is almost redrawing a complete mine plan. And I think that we are optimistic, but I just don't want to commit at this stage. This new mine plan will just optimize. We believe that the past years and you can see probably would have benefited from an optimized, more optimized, let's say 5-to-10-year window. That's what we're doing right now.

How much of our 500,000 I don't want to commit to. It will be something in the long run we see this as a 500,000 and it's going to be north of that, but I don't want to commit right now a number. Without this, we are already in 400,000. We will come back and tell you the nature of it. And I would hope that it's, that it will add to the net growth, but I don't want to commit at this stage.

All right, thanks Alberto. Next one from Keenen du Toit from Vunani Securities. He says, thanks for the update. At H1 2026 results, you guided to production being weighted to H2 '26. Say, is that still very much the case given the Q3 production levels? Are you still comfortable that H2 will be better than H1?

So what we've guided to is very close to midpoint of the guidance. If you do the sums, you'll see that it's still weighted to the second-half.

Great. Thanks very much, Alberto. I think, Alberto, there are a few more questions that have come in. So Francis Daniels at Anibok. He just talks about how comfortable we are on renewing leases in Ghana generally. Obviously, I think you've just sketched out that these are over the, quite a long way away, but any comfort that you can give in that regard?

We have very constructive discussions with the government with the mining commissioner and I just have no reason right now to have any concerns around that. It's far away it's like we're talking about nine years from now it will be a different government. But let's say even if we had it in a year I wouldn't be again the type of discussions and constructive would lead me to not be an issue but right now it's a bit like nine years. Yeah, quite -- we're fine.

Thanks, Alberto. The next is from Nkateko Mathonsi at Investec, and she says, just how comfortable are you with your all-in sustaining cost guidance?

I'll let Gillian -- I am -- but Gillian, I think the cash cost is going to be obviously affected by the things we can control, which is fuel applies and royalties, so that is the deviation, but I think the all-in sustaining will be. Fine at the top end of the guidance. But Gillian?

That's exactly right, Alberto. Thank you. As you said, we are exposed to the volatility in fuel particularly and gold price royalties. Right now, based on forecasts that we have, we're at that upper end of guidance for the full year. But again, depends on what happens in the coming weeks, particularly with regards to fuel price. So yeah, we're very comfortable where we are and we continue to monitor the impacts of the uncontrollables and we'll obviously report when we get to the end of the year.

(inaudible) says, any update on Sukari electrification to the Egypt grid? And then second is any further notable plans of solar electrification to reduce reliance on diesel. I'm happy to take part of the second question if you'd like.

Marcelo Pereira for the first one.

Yes. Thanks, Alberto. We are still progressing with the detailed engineering on this project at this month, which is expected to be concluded in the next -- by the end of this quarter. And then we are going to have a clearer and the confirmation about the feasibility of this project and its implementation.

Perfect. Thanks, Marcelo. And then just Paul, we are advanced on a large solar project in Ghana, which will effectively supply green energy through to both Idioprime and Obowasi. And then equally, we're in the very advanced stages of another solar and biogas project in Sigiri.

Which will not only sort of reduce the reliance on diesel for the plant and the sort of community power generation, but the biogas is going to provide a cash crop, which will be part of a broader alternative livelihoods program in Guinea as well. And that's part of our broader license to operate strategy there.

I'd probably add something there, Stewart, which is important. As we all know, it became this sort of reducing CO2 became non-fashionable for obvious reasons by now what was happening in the United States, but we don't operate on fashion. We have continued with a commitment to reduce by 2030 by 30% the CO2 and the projects. We keep doing it. They are also, I always repeat, we do well by doing good, but because many of most of them, all of them are NPV positive, but we also contribute to the reduction of CO2.

I would add probably that that topic will become fashionable again after what happened in the last days in elections over there. But anyway, we don't operate in fashion, and we continue to progress all of those projects.

Got it. Alberto, I think those questions on the line were likely just questions that had been asked and answered before on the webcast. So if you want to provide any closing remarks before we sign off.

Look, we are, as I said the other day in the Denver Gold Forum, a bit boring, predictable. We fight very hard to control the cost that we can. Yes, there is a massive update in cash costs from the fuel, from the royalties, from inflation and exchange rate north of $200 an ounce. But that hits all of us. It's what we do with the rest. It's what we do with what we can control. And again, we expect this year to be slightly lower, slightly in the cost that we can control.

And we have been doing that every year since 2021. We will meet guidance again, the most important one, production, very close to the midpoint of guidance in spite of the headwinds. And again, that's the benefit of a large portfolio. We have headwinds here, but over there, some assets are performing extraordinarily well. And yeah, we're finishing strong, God willing, as always. October was good and we think we have very solid plans to finish November and December strong.

And then I will probably the last thing I say is our excitement on the growth projects. That's something we committed to the market. We have done very, like, I would say, given all the specifics today, right now, but we have of those projects, except for Gaeta, I would say all of them are in very advanced stage.

They are in execution or in production. So these are well-known, I would say low risk. And very efficient very high rates of returns projects and we're very excited by them so with that we're just all the 50,000 employees are working hard to finish the year safely and strongly.

Thanks very much, Alberto. Thanks, everybody

Thank you.