Earnings call transcript: B2Gold Q3 2025 sees strong performance amid gold price boost

B2Gold Corp reported solid financial results for the third quarter of 2025, driven by robust revenue and operational achievements. The company recorded a revenue of $783 million and an adjusted earnings per share of $0.14. The company also highlighted its strong cash flow and strategic operational advancements, including successful production at its Goose Mine and other key projects.

Key Takeaways

• Revenue for Q3 2025 reached $783 million, with adjusted EPS at $0.14.
• Achieved commercial production at Goose Mine, with significant future production forecasts.
• Strong cash position with $367 million in cash and cash equivalents.
• Continued stable operations in Mali despite regional challenges.

Company Performance

B2Gold’s performance in Q3 2025 underscores its ability to capitalize on a favorable gold price environment. The company has maintained its operational momentum, particularly with the successful ramp-up of production at Goose Mine and the commencement of underground mining at the Umwelt deposit. This performance positions B2Gold favorably against industry peers, showcasing its operational efficiency and strategic foresight.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $783 million
• Adjusted Earnings per Share: $0.14
• Operating Cash Flows: $171 million
• Cash and Cash Equivalents: $367 million
• Drew down $200 million on revolver, with plans to repay by year-end

Outlook & Guidance

B2Gold is optimistic about its future production capabilities, particularly at Goose Mine, where it forecasts production of 250,000 ounces in 2026 and 330,000 ounces in 2027. The company is also expecting to secure a regional mining permit for its Fekola project before the end of the year, which could further enhance its production profile.

Executive Commentary

CEO Clive Johnson remarked, "We are well positioned to take advantage of this strong gold price environment," highlighting the company’s strategic positioning and operational resilience. He also noted the continued stable operations in Mali, saying, "Operations continue. It’s nice to see some support from other governments."

Risks and Challenges

• Political and operational stability in Mali remains a concern, although operations have been stable so far.
• Managing production costs, particularly with temporary increases expected in Q4.
• Execution risks associated with new and ongoing mining projects.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the Fekola Underground grade, which is targeting 4.5 grams, and the challenges related to Goose Mine’s crushing capacity. Executives confirmed that the higher production costs anticipated in Q4 are temporary and expressed confidence in the strong development rates at various mines.

B2Gold’s strategic initiatives and robust financial performance in Q3 2025 reflect its ability to navigate industry challenges and leverage market opportunities effectively, positioning the company for continued growth in the coming quarters.

Full transcript - B2Gold Corp (BTO) Q3 2025:

Conference Operator: Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to B2Gold’s third quarter 2025 financial results conference call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity for analysts to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star then zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Clive Johnson, President and CEO of B2Gold. Please go ahead.

Clive Johnson, President and CEO, B2Gold: Thank you, operator. Good morning, or afternoon, or evening, everyone. Thanks for joining the call. We’re here to talk about the financial results of this third quarter of 2025. We had a strong operational and financial quarter for Fekola, Masbate, and Otjikoto mines. All came in ahead of expectations in the third quarter on the production side, resulting in lower than expected cash operating costs per ounce. On October 2 of this year, we announced we had achieved commercial production at our newly constructed Goose Mine. This milestone comes just three months after the inaugural gold. We look forward to many years of successful operations in Nunavut in close collaboration with our partners at the Kitikmeot Inuit Association. The Goose third quarter production was impacted by the previously disclosed crushing capacity shortfall and a temporary delay in accessing higher grade Umwelt underground.

We are now in the higher grade. To ensure consistent feed of crushed ores in the mill, the company has implemented the use of supplemental mobile crushing capacity. Permanent modification and modifications are in progress and are expected to be implemented in 2026. Continued use of the mobile crusher will assist in operating at higher throughput until these modifications are implemented. We expect to be at design capacity of 4,000 tons per day by the end of the year. Underground mining of the Umwelt deposit commenced in late October 2025 and will be a strong contributing high-grade ore at Goose over the next few years. Nunavut, B2Gold announced an improved construction decision on the Antelope Underground Deposit. Production from Antelope is substantial to increase Otjikoto mine gold production. Leveraging the low-cost platform and extend the life of the mine into the 2030s.

In this strong gold price environment, B2Gold is well positioned to take advantage with an annual gold production of approximately 1 million ounces this year with gold capital spending at Goose now complete. The company is set up well to have significant shareholder value over the coming years. Before I turn it over to Mike to give us more financial detail, I just want to talk a little bit about the political situation in Mali. We’ve had some news come out that I think are some, hearse, multiple headlines from some of the media talking about that it’s imminent that a terrorist group organization is going to take over Bamako in the country of Mali. We think that is completely erroneous and is a great exaggeration of the situation. Yes, there have been some fuel.

Challenges, particularly in Bamako, but we continue to run the mine as we have for many years now and haven’t missed any mining due to any kind of political situation or turmoil associated with that. The mine continues to run well. We’re 500 kilometers from Bamako. We look at the situation that the government still enjoys popular support from the population. They see these organizations that are cutting off fuel to Bamako as foreigners. This is not the battle of the people of Mali, from our understanding and from the intelligence that we have received. Operations continue. It’s nice to see some support from other governments, the United States and others. The U.S. came out and posted support of Mali military and said they’re looking forward to closer collaboration, working on intelligence together. There’s no Western company that wants to see Mali fall into other hands.

There is a lot of international support gathering. We are very confident of our ability to continue to produce in Mali and work very closely with the Mali government. We are expecting the permit for our regional mining and trucking work to the Fekola mill. That is imminent. We received not that long ago the permit to go underground at Fekola. We think we are on track there. Once again, we are not impacted by any of the things going on in Mali right now. We are disappointed to see these irrational or not true headlines that are running around the last little while, including ones that hurt the value of B2Gold. With the benefit of time, I think we will see that this is a situation not impacting the mine. With that, I will hand it over to Mike to give us a financial summary of the quarter.

Mike, CFO, B2Gold: Thanks, Clive. As Clive said, financially, it was a strong quarter. I mean, GAAP earnings were one cent per share, but they were impacted by several non-cash derivative market adjustments. After adjusting for those one-time items, the company’s earnings per share were $0.14 per share of adjusted earnings. Clearly, you can see that benefiting from the strong average gold sales price that we saw in the quarter and continues now. The company recorded revenue of approximately $783 million in Q3. That included $144 million related to the delivery of just over 66,000 ounces under the company’s gold prepay obligations. By the end of October, we had another delivery into those obligations. We have now delivered into one-third of what we owe there. That leaves us just under 200,000 ounces that we will need to deliver into by the end of June.

We’re in good shape there. Operating cash flows total $171 million in the third quarter and/or before working capital adjustments, $180 million, which is another strong result. It highlights the continuing cash-generating potential of our assets and the strong gold price environment. Balance sheet-wise, we continue to remain in strong financial position with cash and cash equivalents of $367 million at the end of the quarter. During the quarter, we drew down, and as we disclosed last time, we drew down $200 million on the revolver. That just helped us manage through some of the working capital timing differences that we have, especially as we deliver into the prepays. We’ll continue to do that. With these gold prices, we expect to repay some or all of it by the year-end.

I’d say overall, we maintain excellent financial flexibility to deliver to the prepays, complete our other sustaining and growth initiatives, continue to fund the health, the exploration programs that we have, and I think continue to return capital under our share buyback plan. I think that’s the summary that I want to touch on in the financial sections, and with that, I’ll turn it over to Bill for an operation project update.

All right. Thanks, Mike. At Goose, having two commercial productions, the focus now moves to steady-state operations and consistent performance at nameplate capacity. We’ve identified the source of the crushing issues that impacted performance early in Q3 and have made a temporary fix with the use of the mobile crushing unit. Permanent optimization to the primary crusher and secondary grinding circuits and the installation of the surge bin capacity are being engineered and designed, with a finalized study and remediation plan in December 2025. Use of the mobile crusher is expected to continue until the modifications are implemented. Due to the shortfall of the crushing capacity and temporary delays in accessing the higher-grade ore at Umwelt underground, B2Gold has revised its 2025 gold production guidance for the Goose Mine down to between 50,000 and 80,000 ounces. Underground mining.

Of the Umwelt deposit commenced in late October 2025, and the company expects underground operations to ramp up quickly through the final months of 2025, setting the operation up well for the first full operating year in 2026. The company reiterates the near-term and long-term gold production estimates of the Goose Mine, which includes a production forecast of approximately 250,000 ounces of gold in 2026 and approximately 330,000 ounces of gold in 2027, and average annual gold production for the initial full six years of operation of approximately 300,000 ounces based only on existing mineral resources. Significant construction activities for the first nine months of 2025 included completion of the mining in the Echo Pit and commissioning of the pit as a TSF to include construction of the winter deposition infrastructure.

Mining of the Umwelt open pit commenced ahead of schedule, with full ramp-up achieved during the second quarter of 2025. Development of the Umwelt underground continued, including development of the fresh air arrays one and two to support stope ore production in the fourth quarter of 2025. Continued dewatering of the future site of the Llama Pit, commissioning of three large glycol heating systems, excavation and construction of foundation for the Arctic corridor for the camp, and construction of mechanically stabilized earth wall for the reclaim tunnel. In Mali, the site continues its strong performance in 2025, exceeding gold production expectations again in the third quarter. Cash costs per ounce were also lower than expected. Of note, Fekola Underground is also performing above expectations, despite operations commencing earlier in Q3 on July 30, 2025. At Masbate, the operation continues to perform well with a world-class safety record.

Mine throughput has significantly outperformed expectations in 2025, and we anticipate consistent production in the fourth quarter. At Otjikoto, open pit and underground mining went very well in the third quarter, with production also exceeding expectations. During the third quarter, the company approved a development decision for the Antelope deposit. The company has also completed further optimization and believes pre-production capital costs can be reduced from $129 million as set in the PA to $105 million. Production from the Antelope has the potential to increase Otjikoto mine gold production to approximately 110,000 ounces over the life of the Antelope Underground mine. With that, I’ll turn it back over to Clive for an intro to Q&A.

Clive Johnson, President and CEO, B2Gold: Thanks, Bill. Operator, we’re ready for Q&A.

Conference Operator: Thank you. We will now begin the analyst question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you’re using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. The first question comes from Owais Habib with Scotiabank. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Operator. Good morning, Clive and B2Gold team. Congrats on a good quarter. A couple of questions from me, just starting off with Fekola. Fekola Underground seems to be ramping up really well. What kind of grades are you expecting going into 2026? And is there a target that you have in mind in terms of ore tons mined and kind of grade on the Fekola Underground?

Bill? Yeah, I don’t have what the exact grade is, but I think we were targeting about 4.5 grams is what I remember. 4.5 grams and a throughput of about 1,500 tons a day. You can do the math on what it’s going to be. It’s something like that. Remember, those are replacement ounces of low grade.

Bill, thanks for that. Bill, in terms of the development rate and development rates into Fekola Underground, is that all progressing well and kind of confident in terms of what you guys are going to be producing in 2026 then?

Absolutely. The contractor is Byrnecut, the same contractor we’ve had in Namibia. Very good relationship. The development has actually been on or ahead of schedule really the whole way.

Good stuff. Just moving on quickly to Fekola regional permit, I know we are expecting the permit by the end of 2025. In terms of any sort of pre-development or anything that you guys can do prior to that, or basically you guys are just ready as soon as the permit comes in, you just start pre-stripping and then start bringing the ore?

We are, in fact, pre-stripping some. We’ve been given approval to go out and do some clearing and grubbing. All of that is happening. Obviously, we’re hiring people, getting the equipment. Really, we’re putting a little bit of money at risk knowing that everything we’ve been told that this permit is coming.

Got it. Thanks for that. Just moving quickly to Goose, underground grade seems to be picking up as kind of we’re going into Q4. Are development rates also picking up as well? I think this is kind of a question that has come up in other mining operations as well. Do you have the right people and kind of equipment in place right now?

Yeah, we have the right people for sure. Remember, this is remote mining, remote stope mining. So it is a specialized skill. And we do have the right people on site now. And we see that it will be coming up as planned.

Okay. Thanks for that. That’s it from me, guys. Thanks.

Clive Johnson, President and CEO, B2Gold: Thanks, Owais.

Conference Operator: The next question comes from Anita Soni with CIBC World Markets. Please go ahead.

Anita Soni, Analyst, CIBC World Markets: Hi, good morning, Clive and Bill. I just wanted to ask a few questions on Goose. I just wanted to understand the key drivers of the cost increase. Obviously, sorry, into the fourth quarter. Obviously, there are lower tons that are going to be pushed, and that’s going to impact the numbers. How do you expect that to evolve into next year? I mean, you maintain the production guide for next year. I’m just trying to get an understanding on what we should be thinking about on costs. Are they going to be as indicated previously, or will there be some impact?

Clive Johnson, President and CEO, B2Gold: I can, so it’s Mike. It’s just on the cost, Anita. For the fourth quarter, we guided up the per ounce costs are a little higher. You’re right, than we had before. We’ve lost the production costs that were in the budget for Q4 there, but we re-guided down the ounces to 45,000 ounces just on the basis that we were a little later getting into the higher-grade stopes and the total production for the quarter. I don’t think those are reflective of the cost going forward. This is just a function of the continued ramp-up. On the costs, as we look forward, the 250,000 that Bill was talking about and beyond into the later years of the mine life, we don’t have any change to those right now. We’re doing the budget for next year. Also.

An updated sort of upside mine case as well that we’re looking at. I think we don’t have anything new to put out on those at this point. Certainly, the key message is these Q4 ones are ramp-up ounces. The cost related to those shouldn’t be extrapolated into anything in the future. We’ve tried to be relatively conservative in that guidance. We’ve had to re-guide Goose down just for the fourth quarter. We’ve tried to be conservative in that guidance and give her a chance to meet her needed for the queue.

Anita Soni, Analyst, CIBC World Markets: Okay. Sorry, could you just, Bill, could you just give me an idea of what’s actually going on with the delay? Accessing Umwelt? What was the reason for the delay?

The reason for the delay was lack of equipment parts for Sandvik and then operators to run it. It is one of those things that you assume in Canada, these things come on a very set schedule, and it just did not happen. We have rectified the situation. We do have the people on site now, and we do have the appropriate drilling media. It has been solved.

Okay. All right. Thank you. That’s it for my questions.

Clive Johnson, President and CEO, B2Gold: Thanks.

Conference Operator: The next question comes from Don DeMarco with National Bank. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning, Clive and team. Thank you for taking my question. Maybe first off at Goose, you’re looking at some different options regarding the crushing, the optimization of the crushing. Among the options that you’re considering, we look forward to the results of your report and so on. What’s the potential magnitude of these range of solutions just to get away from that mobile crushing? The cancer of the CapEx and stuff like that.

Yeah. So we talked before. Remember, the initial one when we were in Denver was the concept of really kind of a very small change. Obviously, we’ve disappointed on it. And so we’ve got a third-party consultant coming in that’ll deliver a report in December. I really don’t want to, once again, tell you in Denver then have to walk it back. It’s still a small magnitude compared to fixing it and getting a throughput.

Okay. I guess whatever you decide, I mean, you got the CLIF coming up and decisions to be made to kind of sequence with that, and you’d have things on the ground as needed, I would imagine.

That’s correct.

Okay. So in Mali, the regional permits, we’re looking forward to year-end to have them. The timeframe for getting these permits has been somewhat fluid. What are the reasons behind that? I mean, you guys have a good line of communication with the government. You’ve been out there a number of times. Is it a different priority for the government? I mean, from your point of view, what’s the reason for pushing back the schedule multiple times?

Clive Johnson, President and CEO, B2Gold: I think we’re in the bureaucracy of Mali in terms of winding us way through various approval levels. Our understanding most recently is that it’s right in the final stages of approval, and we expect that definitely before the end of the year and maybe quite imminently.

Okay. We’ll look forward to that. Yeah, I’ve seen the report too that you’re going to start right away with the stripping once you get that and other prep work and look forward to seeing all that. Production reflected in guidance next year. That’s all for me. Thank you.

Bill said we’ve already started some prep work on site. Thanks, Don.

Conference Operator: Once again, if any analysts have questions, please press star then one. The next question comes from Kerry McCreary with Canaccord Genuity. Please go ahead.

Good morning. Maybe a question for Mike. You drew down $200 million last quarter, and I see you’ve paid off $50 million. Do you anticipate needing to use the credit facility as you go through these prepaid payments?

Clive Johnson, President and CEO, B2Gold: I think you’ll see us. Like you said, I think if gold prices stay where we see them right now for the fourth quarter, then we expect that we’ll have paid down a substantial part of that line, if not all of it, by year-end. I think you’ll see us utilize it a little bit as we move through Q1 and Q2 just to manage the timing, the prepaid deliveries, and the fact that we already got the cash for those. After that, the line will be repaid, and it’s off to the races. I think we’ll use it as a temporary interquarter thing, and it’s relatively small draws. As we move forward, we’re into these cash flow harvest years.

Maybe on CapEx at Goose, I mean, Q3 CapEx seemed a bit higher than what we were expecting. Maybe that’s just seasonality in Nunavut. Any guidance on what we should be expecting for growth capital at Goose for Q4?

Yeah. I’d say if you look at the budget that we put out for half two, it was $176 million. We didn’t give a split, but it was heavily weighted to Q3. The budget was roughly $130 million for Q3 and then $45 million-$46 million for Q4. In Q3, the recorded CapEx in the financials was $157 million. That includes we ended up capitalizing a bunch of site general costs and commissioning costs just because of the timing of the ramp-up, which they were budgeted as operating costs. We ended up capitalizing them so they flowed through the CapEx line. Like for like, the hard assets in the budget, we were $120 million versus the budget of $131 million plus these site G&A costs. On the capital front, the pure CapEx front, we budgeted. We’re pretty much on budget.

Q4, we did add $15 million to Goose’s capital budget. It has gone from $45 million to $60 million. That really is the factor. There are still quite a few folks on site that are gradually being wound down, but there are a few more people on site than we thought for a little longer. We added that $15 million in. The way to think about Q3 is if you look at the capital and operating costs, we were pretty much right on budget. It is just the split, how we ended up. We capitalized some of the site G&A and some of the commissioning costs that we did not expect. That was just a reallocation of costs from two areas of the budget. In Q4, add in $15 million for CapEx for Q4. It goes from $45 million to $60 million.

Okay. That’s helpful. Thanks, Mike.

Conference Operator: This concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Clive Johnson for any closing remarks. Please go ahead.

Clive Johnson, President and CEO, B2Gold: Okay. Thanks, Operator. As we said at the outset, a strong quarter operationally and financially. We look forward to progressing ramp-up at Goose and continuing our strong performance at the other operations. If you have any follow-up questions, feel free to reach out to Michael McDonald, and he can put you in touch with the right party to answer your questions. Thanks for joining us today.

Conference Operator: This brings to an end today’s conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.

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