Operator
Operator
Good afternoon, and welcome to the Q3 2025 results presentation for Caledonia Mining. Today, we're joined by Mark Learmonth, who's the CEO, and he's going to introduce the webinar and start his presentation. Mark, over to you.
Caledonia Mining Corporation Plc (CMCL)
Q3 2025 Earnings Call· Mon, Nov 10, 2025
$22.98
-5.55%
Same-Day
-1.36%
1 Week
+0.63%
1 Month
-10.90%
vs S&P
-12.04%
Operator
Operator
Good afternoon, and welcome to the Q3 2025 results presentation for Caledonia Mining. Today, we're joined by Mark Learmonth, who's the CEO, and he's going to introduce the webinar and start his presentation. Mark, over to you.
Mark Learmonth
Management
Thank you. Thank you very much, Julie. Should we open the slide deck? [Indiscernible]. Move on to the forward-looking statement and disclaimer page. Next page, there you go. And then the presenting team. So yes, I'm Mark Learmonth, Caledonia's Chief Executive; joined by Ross Jerrard, the CFO, who will run us through the financial numbers. James Mufara, the Chief Operating Officer, will talk to us about operations. Victor will say a few words about Bilboes and Craig will -- Craig Harvey will talk to us about the -- some of our exploration initiatives. Can we just move to the next page? Okay. The first thing I'll point out is that, as you probably noticed, we no longer publish the standard sort of management discussion and analysis and the detailed financial statements. So quarters 1 and quarter 3 will produce what we've done this morning, which is like a truncated version, but I think that's more than adequate for conveying the substance of what we're doing. But as we get into the presentation, first, we must recognize that we had a fatality during the quarter, and we extend our condolences to the family and the colleagues of the man who tragically lost his life. James will talk to us more about what we've done in the aftermath of that to comprehensively review our safety procedures and safety practices, and what we're doing to strengthen our risk management and workforce protection. So James will go into that in some more detail. It was a solid performance operationally. Production at Blanket was just over 19,000 ounces, and we sold just over 20,000 ounces. And that was clearly -- we've clearly been helped by the rising gold price. So the gold price is up 40% quarter-on-quarter, comparable quarter to this quarter to just over $3,400 an ounce, which drove a strong improvement in revenue and also profitability. So revenue up 52% to $71 million and EBITDA up 162% to $33 million. Ross will clearly provide more information on the financials. With respect to Bilboes, as we say in the RNS, we expect to give an update as to where we are and where we're going with that imminently. So Victor is on hand to say something. But frankly, until we've imminently said something, there's not a great deal we can say at this stage. And then Craig will run us through the exploration programs at Blanket and Motapa, which we're advancing and which is showing very, very encouraging results. And then finally, I'll just remind you all that in addition to these results, we've this morning declared another quarterly dividend of $0.14 a share. So with that, can I hand over to James to run us through the operating results? James, over to you.
James Mufara
Management
Thank you very much, Mark. Good day to you all. It is very sad that -- I mean, in this quarter, we actually have to report a loss of life incident that occurred at our Blanket mine. In this very quarter, one of the things that why it's -- this tragic is we have seen quite a serious improvement in terms of our health and safety parameters, and that's in terms of lost time injuries, in terms of environmental conditions underground, ventilation conditions underground, we have seen an all-round improvement and accident-free days, we've seen quite a serious improvement. However, we still suffered this loss of life in which the gang leader who was conducting -- in the process of conducting secondary blasting actually had a premature detonation and he lost his life. Secondary blasting operation is an operation where we break some of the bigger rocks that could have been generated during the time of primary blasting, so that you can send them through into our ore buses and be in a position to take them out to surface. Immediately after this accident, we embarked on an investigation, thorough investigation and extensive investigation to determine the root causes of this accident. We had also reported -- we reported also this to the government who also actually conducted a thorough, extensive investigation on their own to determine this root cause and possible areas where we can see improvements. The investigation is complete now and action plans that we found out are currently being implemented to avoid any possible recurrence of these significant unwanted events. So one of the key issues that we still need to deal with is the issue of our employees and higher risk appetite that we see within the operations. If you can just go to the…
Mark Learmonth
Management
Thank you, James. So Ross, do you want to run us through the finance, please?
Ross Ian Jerrard
Management
Thank you, Mark, and thank you, James. My pleasure. Good afternoon, everybody. It's my pleasure to run through the financial results. And as what James described, it's been a challenging quarter, but certainly well delivered. So if we can turn to the next slide, a quick overview of our financial results and a summary. You'll see gold sold is up 9% to 20,000 ounces against gold produced of just over 19,000 ounces, solid quarter there. I will highlight that those gold produced ounces are the Blanket ounces. There were some 437 ounces that was generated from Bilboes, that we don't account on this table just in order to calculate our on mine costs, et cetera. So a very solid set of numbers in terms of ounces produced and sold. Just dropping down below that first line, you'll see the on-mine costs, which were up 27% quarter-on-quarter. That's driven by our sort of traditional elements of electricity, labor, and consumables. That increase was incurred this quarter, as James has indicated, there were additional volumes that were having to be processed and moved to compensate for some of those lower grades. And importantly, the teams had to be shifted around because of the unfortunate incidents. So when we're comparing against those areas that were planned to be or scheduled to be worked, there were a number of moving parts that obviously resulted in additional costs. But also additional volumes having to be moved, offset by that lower grade, which obviously came at a cost, and that has driven our on-mine costs. Dropping down to our all-in sustaining costs for the quarter, you will see that they have equally moved up some 40%, and that's predominantly due to those on-mine costs that I've just mentioned, but also the higher gold prices impacted our…
Mark Learmonth
Management
Yes. Thank you, Ross. So Craig, can you just talk us through the exploration at Motapa and at Blanket please?
Craig Harvey
Management
Thanks, Mark. Well, I can do that for you. So I'll just -- if we can go on to the next slide. So just very quickly, what we're doing at Motapa, the budget for the year is about -- just over 27,000 meters of drilling. At the end of Q3, we had done just under 20,000 meters. It's about 71%, 72% complete. We expecting to complete the drilling campaign during Q4. I did mention, I think, in the last quarterly that there were some issues with the laboratories in Zimbabwe. That seems to have been sorted. We have caught up quite a number of assays. So I am expecting to have a maiden resource declaration for Motapa, specifically Motapa North during H1 of 2026. If we could go on to the next slide then. So this is -- this is just -- when I talk Motapa North, I mean, obviously, it's those nice pretty colored zones that you see on that map there. But that blue line that represents the Bilboes, which is our current project that everybody knows about and the Motapa area. So from Motapa to the Bilboes boundary is literally 200 meters, and it's another 250 meters to the Isabella South pit. So quite clearly, what we're doing at Motapa and Motapa North should in all aspects have an impact on the Bilboes project going further. So currently, with all the drilling that we've done, we drilled and we've defined some mineralized zones over a strike length of approximately 2,500 meters. It remains open to the Northeast, still have some gaps between the historic old pits that we've got to do. Motapa North, its main thrust is oxide, sorry, not oxide, sulfide mineral resources below the current pits down to a depth of about 200 meters. So…
Mark Learmonth
Management
Thank you, Craig. At the outset, I had indicated that Victor would talk about Bilboes. But the fact of the matter is that, as I also said, we're about to provide a very detailed update on Bilboes imminently. And so at this stage, there's nothing really Victor can say other than just repeat the word imminently. So apologies for getting that slightly wrong. So in terms of outlook, we remain on track to achieve the increased production guidance for 2025. So we're about, sort of notwithstanding a few headwinds in Q3, we're about 3,000 ounces ahead of where we expected to be at the beginning of the year, which is good. Craig has given you a good sense of the very encouraging drilling taking place at Blanket, both at depth and at the surface. Motapa, we're looking to convert the drilling into a maiden resource early next -- first half of next year, which should validate the acquisition of that asset some time ago. As I said, Bilboes' feasibility study, news on that is imminent. And we continue to look closely at cost management to see to what extent we can try and get those costs down somewhat, but acknowledging that Blanket is now a fundamentally different mine to what it was 5 years ago, and we're not going to go back to the days of enjoying the days of producing gold at $850 an ounce. So with that, we can open it up to questions.
Operator
Operator
[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from Nic Dinham.
Nic Dinham
Analyst
I have several questions, tidy up some details here. On the mining side, there's a lot more broken ore registering than actually hoisted. Could we have an explanation for that? And also from you, James, I think what are your immediately available ore reserves at the moment? I think you've got a sort of South African standard when you talk about that?
Mark Learmonth
Management
James, do you want to deal with those questions?
James Mufara
Management
Yes. So obviously, in this particular quarter, we broke more, but we had -- I mean, if you look at the year, for instance, we are within the normal standard of plus or minus 2%, the difference between what we broke and what we hoisted. But in this particular quarter, we had -- we broke slightly more, and this is simply because of our hoisting constraints, the stoppages that we had with the loss of life in some of the areas, and we let, but you will see that that will correct out this quarter. Then in terms of the immediately available sort of phase length, we are still very -- I mean we're still quite low. We're looking at maybe at the moment 2 months to 3 months. We need to move that up with a little bit more development that we need to do that with the flexibility. We are happy that we are already over 5% above for the year. And we are seeing -- we are actually mining -- we're actually putting back into our reserves. So we should see a big correction within the next year. And I think within the next 3 years to 4 years, we should be in a position to be maybe 3 months to 6 months or better, so that we can have better flexibility.
Nic Dinham
Analyst
And here's a question which I always run off you, Ross. What are you expecting from dividends from Blanket this year? And will that bring that horizon for the end of the facilitation loans any closer than quarter 1, which you spoke about last time. Obviously, things have materially improved.
Ross Ian Jerrard
Management
Hello, Nic. Yes, absolutely. So those loans basically will be paid off by the end of the year or January at the latest. So certainly earlier than originally talked about in terms of end of -- sort of Q1 next year. And then, yes, in terms of planning for the remainder of the year, we're originally targeting -- well if I deal with in cash, we were targeting a $50 million sort of cash balance to have been distributed and be sitting in Jersey by the end of the year. I think that's more likely to be between $40 million and $42 million, that type of level in terms of distributions that come through the chain. So we've had $45 million that have been distributed up from Blanket, both during the quarter and post in terms of dividends, and we continue to look to build our offshore bank account up closer to that $40 million mark.
Nic Dinham
Analyst
Sorry, Ross, if you can just explain again what is the quantum of dividends that Blanket will distribute over this year, given where things are at the moment? What will the total look like? Is that the number you mentioned?
Ross Ian Jerrard
Management
Yes. So those are the numbers that we've already done sort of $45 million. And depending on performance and the like, we're probably going to get between sort of $15 million to $20 million additional distributions that happen within this remainder of the year. That's obviously impacted by timings in terms of when those dividends actually get declared and the distributions get distributed up the chain. So we've done $45 million, it will probably be $60 million to $70 million in terms of actual distributions that come up from Blanket.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from [ Joseph Tarsh ].
Unknown Analyst
Analyst
My question is mainly for Mark. So you've talked in the past about how your goal is to avoid further common shareholder dilution as you fund the growth of the business. And with the favorable gold prices in 2025, Blanket, you're really starting to harvest some of the fruit of Blanket and the previous investments there. So my question is, how much do you intend to retain cash to fund the future development projects and potentially other acquisitions in Zimbabwe, as opposed to increase the dividend? And effectively, if a common shares needed to be issued, again, raise your cost of capital and doing so, as I think in hindsight, has been the case following the dividend increases with Blanket?
Mark Learmonth
Management
Okay. I'm not sure I heard all of that correctly. The upshot is that we -- there were several questions embedded in that. We're not looking at any further acquisitions in Zimbabwe. I think our plate is full. That's the first thing to say. Secondly, we do have a very substantial capital investment program in the Bilboes project, and that will become clearer imminently. And in that context, it would not be appropriate to increase the dividend. Having said that, our planning going forward is to maintain the dividend. Now clearly, we're not going to promise to maintain the dividend. But we don't see the dividend increasing, and we will do our level best to avoid reducing the dividend. I think that's all -- I think those are the answers to the questions you raised. Is there anything I've not answered? It's quite a complex question. Is there anything I've not answered?
Unknown Analyst
Analyst
I think that gets to the meat of it. Maybe just as a follow-up, if you were to have a general idea of when dividend increases would occur again, would it be after the current projects with Bilboes and Motapa are substantially completed?
Mark Learmonth
Management
Well, it would be after Bilboes is completed. And let's be very clear. We're doing Bilboes not for fun. We're doing Bilboes to increase cash generation and thereby increase our ability to pay dividends. That's entirely what we're about. I mean we've been paying dividends now for about 12 years or so. And if you look at the returns that we've generated for shareholders over the course of the last 10 years or so, I think it's a 1,000% return compared to gold going up threefold and the GDXJ going up fourfold. So we substantially outperformed both gold and the GDXJ. And a major contribution to that has actually been the effect of those continuous dividend payments over the last 10 years to 12 years. So paying a dividend is deeply embedded in our DNA. And I would hope that our past actions in terms of maintaining and then increasing the dividend should give shareholders a high degree of comfort that we're going into Bilboes and other projects with a view to increasing the dividend. It's very important.
Operator
Operator
Our next question comes from Tate Sullivan.
Tate Sullivan
Analyst
I think [indiscernible], sorry for background noise. Is any of the work that you have done on Motapa going to factor into the feasibility study for Bilboes?
Mark Learmonth
Management
No, it's far too, that would -- it's far too early. It will take a maiden resource at Motapa early next year is just a staging post. To complete that work at Motapa will take -- Craig, what, 3 years, 3 years or 4 years?
Craig Harvey
Management
Yes, I'd say a timeline of 3 years or 3 years to 5 years.
Mark Learmonth
Management
Yes. So that -- if we were to -- if we're hoping to fold Motapa into Bilboes at the get-go, that would introduce a delay of many years into the project, which I'm not sure on this as we stand. So look, it is all -- if you think about the Bilboes project, the first 6 years will be mining in the Isabella-McCays area. And then the latter 4 years will be mining Bubi, which is more remote. In the intervening period, that gives us plenty of time to finish the geological work at Motapa and then in due course to fold Matapa into Bilboes as the Isabella-McCays material runs out. But at this stage, there'll be no benefit to shareholders in deferring the project.
Tate Sullivan
Analyst
And then for Blanket, you mentioned in the press release a plan of scheduled engineering work on winders and shafts. I'm sure that -- and then storing and then accumulating the ore for uninterrupted milling. Is this all planning for 2026 engineering work?
Mark Learmonth
Management
Your line is very poor. Could you kind of repeat the question because I couldn't pick up all of it.
Tate Sullivan
Analyst
Yes. You mentioned some scheduled engineering work on winders and shafts for Blanket. Is that all planning for 2026?
Mark Learmonth
Management
James, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's that sort of a relatively quiet period over the December, January '26, '27. James, is that correct?
James Mufara
Management
Yes, it is correct, Mark. Yes. So '26, '27, we're going to have the AC-DC conversion, yes.
Mark Learmonth
Management
Yes. And let's be clear, the whole point is to have a stockpile so that we can see our way through that hiatus without interrupting production.
Operator
Operator
There are no other raised hands. So follow-up, which is from Nic Dinham.
Nic Dinham
Analyst
Yes. So I missed a question for Craig here. When, Craig, do you think you'll be in a position to do a reserve upgrade at Bilboes -- at Blanket? And when would that result in a technical report summary?
Craig Harvey
Management
So we are currently busy with one. So during Q1, late Q1, we will have a new technical report out. We'll have a revised capital, and we'll have revised resources. And obviously, with the life of mine, we'll have a revised reserve estimate as well.
Operator
Operator
We've got another question from [ Yuvan Lowe ].
Unknown Analyst
Analyst
Congratulations on the strong financial results. I've got a couple of questions. Perhaps first for James. So in relation to the development that has been done, could you just talk specifically to Eroica and BQR?
Mark Learmonth
Management
James?
James Mufara
Management
Yes. So I mean we obviously now, at the moment, I mean, in terms of the development, nothing has really changed in terms of Eroica and BQR, I mean we are developing reserves in that area. We still have got crews also that are busy mining in that area. I wouldn't say off the top of my head, it could be around, Craig, maybe 15% of our production is coming from there. These are still high-grade areas. We're still seeing good values in Eroica and the BQR area. But we also -- that we also had the loss of life was also in BQR, for instance. But we are confident that with the development that we're doing at the moment, we should be in a position to open good reserves in the next 2 years, 3 years, like we say, and we are accelerating development there.
Unknown Analyst
Analyst
On a related note, but this time directed to Craig. So the discoveries at Sheet or in the position of Sheet are very interesting. I know you're focusing on the oxide for heap leach right now. But have you done any deeper holes? Does there appear to be an extension at depth to Sheet? Is it disseminated sulfides or is it [ quartz ]?
Craig Harvey
Management
Yes. So that surface exploration that I showed there sits, as I say, it's 250 meters to the east of Sheet. When we extrapolated underground because, obviously, we've got the whole claim of our underground workings, it appears as though this area hasn't been mined. So there is a potential for a previously unknown or unmined orebody to be sitting in the footfall of Sheet 250 meters to the east. So we're going to tackle the surface. And in the meantime, we have -- we are in the process of procuring slightly stronger, better electrohydraulic rigs that we can drill from 9 level on from Sheet drives that we have there to actually have a look if this does carry on down.
Mark Learmonth
Management
Sorry, Yuvan, does that finish you? You done?
Unknown Analyst
Analyst
Yes. Thank you very much.
Mark Learmonth
Management
I can see we've got a typed question, which I think falls -- I mean, Ross, can you pick it up at the bottom? It seems to really fall into your bailiwick. Can you see them?
Ross Ian Jerrard
Management
Sorry Mark. I didn't seen enough, reading through.
Mark Learmonth
Management
Yes. I mean, the first question is what's effectively the downside gold price scenario, which -- below which we couldn't sustain the dividend? So I think that's the first question. Are you able to answer that?
Ross Ian Jerrard
Management
Yes. So on that one, that would be sort of $1,850 would be the low price that -- or downside scenario in the short term and that we've modeled on that side.
Mark Learmonth
Management
Okay. And the second one refers to lease liabilities. I don't quite understand what the question is about lease liability. Cash used for payments of lease liabilities has been increasing year-on-year. What's the long-term capital allocation strategy for managing these increased lease debt? I don't quite know what lease liabilities were referring to?
Ross Ian Jerrard
Management
Yes, not sure either in terms of the leases.
Mark Learmonth
Management
We're conspicuously ungeared. I mean we do have some loan notes, which initially were issued by the solar company. And then when we sold the solar company, we Caledonia deliberately took those loan notes over, because we're interested in helping to further develop the emergence of a debt capital market in Zimbabwe. And so we're keen as a company to continue to build those relationships with high-quality Zimbabwean institutions. So we have those liabilities. Then the other liabilities are really the nature of very short-term overdraft facilities. And as you can see, we've pretty much repaid to the latter half of those to go during this quarter. So I'm not quite sure what the lease liabilities are.
Ross Ian Jerrard
Management
It's probably related to some of the property leases and the new buildings and some of the signing of those leases. But again, not material in the total scheme of the proceeding here.
Mark Learmonth
Management
Okay. Two further questions. First, what's the percentage tonnage being hoisted by #4 in Central Shaft? So currently, the percentage -- I think for the whole of this year, the target is for about 62% to come up Central Shaft and the balance to come up #4 Shaft. And so I think the point that Ross was making is if you look at that in terms of tonne meters, in 2020, we hoisted 630,000 tonnes from a depth of 760 meters. So that's about 450 million tonne meters. If you take -- if we're going to hoist -- this year, we're going to host about 830,000 tonnes. If 62% of that is coming from 100 meters, that effectively increases the tonne meters to about nearly 900 million. So we're using pretty much twice as much power to hoist, which is, I think, the point that Ross was trying to make. And the second question is, was the pressure on production cost broad-based or unique too? The pressure on production costs has been across the board. So we're continuing to see increased labor costs, and that's a combination of overtime, and I'm going to say bonus payments based on production exceeding targets. In terms of trying to manage overtime, one of the things we're doing is we've introduced a clocking time attendance system, which is allowing us now to get a better handle as to how and why overtime is being incurred. And one of the things we want to do going forwards is to try to improve the roster and improve the way we use labor, so that the workers get to and from their places of work much more quickly. And therefore, they're less tired, and they also do less overtime. So I think that's the initiative on labor.…
Operator
Operator
No further raise hands. So over to you for any closing remarks.
Mark Learmonth
Management
Let me just make sure there's no one. Okay. Look, thank you very much for joining us. It was a -- I characterize the quarter as being a solid quarter. It creates a good foundation. And as we say, the real news flow is going to be the imminent news flow relating to Bilboes. So thank you all for joining us. Thank you very much.