Aura Minerals (AUGO) 2026年第3季財報電話會議：產量成長27%，Era Dorada如期推進

重點摘要

• Aura Minerals 於 2026 年第三季產出 96,000 約當黃金盎司，季增 27%，主要得益於更高品位與生產力提升對營運表現的支撐。
• 淨營收達到創單季新高的 3.86 億美元，季增 15%，調整後 EBITDA 為 2.37 億美元。過去 12 個月調整後 EBITDA 升至 8.86 億美元。
• 在扣除 3,400 萬美元已實現黃金避險虧損後，經常性自由現金流為 1.24 億美元。該公司宣布發放每股 0.72 美元股利，並在該季完成 1,000 萬美元的股票買回。
• 在籌得 2 億美元聯貸後，Aura 截至第三季末擁有約 4.2 億美元現金、1.8 億美元淨負債，淨負債對 EBITDA 槓桿比率為 0.2 倍。
• 管理層重申全年 290,000 至 340,000 約當黃金盎司的產量指引，並預期隨著多座礦場的品位與營運表現提升，第四季產量將進一步改善。
• 管理層表示，Era Dorada 實體工程進度已超過 13%，且維持如期進行並在預算之內。MSG 的轉虧為盈計畫亦初見成效，長期目標為年產約 80,000 盎司，且總維持成本接近每盎司 2,000 美元。

核心財務數據

2026 年前九個月，Aura 共產出 253,000 約當黃金盎司，並創造 6.77 億美元調整後 EBITDA。過去 12 個月營收突破 14 億美元，調整後 EBITDA 達到 8.86 億美元。

業務與營運表現

Aranzazu 受惠於更高品位、選礦廠效能提升以及有利的銅價。管理層預期第四季將有進一步的溫和改善。

隨著較高品位的礦石進入加工廠，Apoena 預計在第四季錄得大幅產量增長。管理層表示，大部分所需的剝岩作業已在第三季完成。

Borborema 展現強勁品位表現，並增設兩台過濾設備以消除工廠瓶頸。管理層預期第四季產量將維持強勁，並計畫於 2026 年底前發布擴建研究報告。

在 MSG，Aura 正將地下採礦作業從由上而下法轉為由下而上法。該公司正增加地下開拓量、降低礦石貧化率並重新審查各項合約。近期約有一半的選廠進料來自地表較低品位的庫存礦石，其品位通常在 0.4 至 0.7 左右，但管理層強調，這些庫存僅作為暫時性的緩衝，而非轉型復甦計畫的核心基礎。

Era Dorada 的實體工程完工率突破 13%。作業平台的土方工程已完工，土木工程已展開，CIL 槽的建造亦在進行中。目前正安裝地下排水與冷卻基礎設施，以因應地熱與熱水環境。截至 9 月，Aura 在瓜地馬拉擁有 795 名員工。

管理層指引

管理層重申 2026 年產量指引為 290,000 至 340,000 約當黃金盎司。預期隨著更高品位與更強生產力惠及 Apoena、Aranzazu、Borborema 和 MSG，第四季產量將有所提升。

Aura 亦預期第四季總維持成本將會下降，並維持在全年指引範圍內，儘管可能接近該區間的高標。管理層指出，品位提升、營運表現改善以及更有利的巴西雷亞爾匯率均為支撐因素。

擴建資本支出預計將趨向 2026 年指引區間的低標，甚至可能低於該區間。管理層將近期的支出減少歸因於與供應商協商的付款條件，而非專案延誤。未支出的金額將順延至 2027 年，不會改變 Era Dorada 的總專案預算或工程進度。

針對 MSG，管理層設定的目標是年產約 80,000 盎司，且總維持成本接近每盎司 2,000 美元，可能於 2027 年達成。該地下礦場預計還需要四到五個月的準備時間，才能達到預期的營運架構。

風險與關注焦點

Era Dorada 的地下開拓必須克服熱水與岩溫過高的問題。管理層表示抽水、製冷與專家支援均已到位，但該專案仍處於早期開發階段。

規劃中的地熱發電廠並非初期投產的必備條件。Aura 仍需物色合作夥伴並完成工程與可行性研究，可能要等到 Era Dorada 投產兩至三年後才會運作。在此過渡期間將採用替代電力來源。

MSG 仍面臨地下開拓進度落後的問題，尚未滿載運作。其成本降低取決於增加較高品位的地下礦石進料、穩定開拓需求，以及減少對低品位庫存的依賴。

Aura 第三季在黃金領式避險方面錄得 3,400 萬美元的已實現虧損。從 2026 年 11 月至 2028 年 6 月，約有 141,000 盎司仍受限於黃金領式避險合約，大多將於 2028 年中到期。

管理層亦強調匯率是一項重大成本變數。該公司的指引假設為 1 美元兌 5.50 巴西雷亞爾，而今年以來的平均匯率接近 5.10 巴西雷亞爾。視不同營運點而定，燃料約占成本結構的 5% 至 8%。

分析師問答焦點

關於 Era Dorada，管理層將地下開拓速度、主要設備交付以及招募經驗豐富的地下採礦人員，列為未來 12 個月的關鍵里程碑。Aura 亦已採購設備，以補足由承包商主導的礦山開發進度。

關於設備車隊收回自營，管理層表示承包商報價已顯著上漲，且 Aura 目前的營運成熟度足以支持將更多工作轉為自行執行。在取得必要核准的前提下，該項轉型預計將於 2027 年初全面實施，潛在效益包括更完善的保養維護、更高的車隊可靠度以及更低的成本。

在探勘方面，隨著礦區周邊鑽探及更廣泛區域發現礦層，管理層對延長 Apoena 的礦山壽命更具信心。不過，對於電話會議中討論到的另一座剩餘壽命較短的礦場，管理層對延長其壽命的看法則較不樂觀。

在資本配置方面，Aura 表示將持續資助 Era Dorada、探勘計畫與營運改善工程，同時透過股利發放與庫藏股買回向股東回饋現金。管理層仍聚焦於美洲地區的黃金與銅礦收購機會，並認為併購是實現年產 100 萬約當黃金盎司長期目標的必要途徑。

法說會完整逐字稿

---

完整財報電話會議逐字稿

管理層陳述

Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Third Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. This conference is being recorded, and the replay will be available at the company's website at auraminerals.com/investedoris.[Operator Instructions]. [Foreign Language].

Before proceeding, we would like to clarify that any statements that may be made during this conference call regarding the company's business prospects operational and financial projections and goals are the beliefs and assumptions of our Executive Board and the current information available to the company. These statements may involve risks and uncertainties as they relate to future events and therefore, depend on circumstances that may or may not occur. Investors should be aware of events related to the macroeconomic scenario and industry and other factors that could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in the respective forward-looking statements.

Present at this conference, we have Rodrigo Barbosa, President and CEO; Kleber Cardoso, CFO; and Glauber Rosa-Luvizotto, COO. Now I turn the conference over to Rodrigo Barbosa, you may begin the conference.

Rodrigo Barbosa

Thank you very much for all participating in this earnings call for the third quarter morning all. And before I get started, just a quick reminder that you have here in your screen scan the care cold. We have our Aura Day happening in New York at NASDAQ on October 30 afternoon. We will have an important update about how we are running the operations. We're going to have important updates about the turnaround on MSG, how we are developing era dorada, that we are also thinking and doing now this year a zero-based budget.

We're going to walk you through how we are planning the budget also for next year. There's also the transition of the mine fleet in sources that we recently announced. So there will be several updates, including important advancement in exploration that we would like to share with the market on October 30. So please put it in our agenda. And if you have availability, be there with us, that will be an important opportunity to have a more broad conversation and deep conversation about how or is performing and how we will perform in the next 3 to 5 years. So let's get started. And if we could put the first slide in terms of production and results. And as a quick summary, and as we all do, at the same time, same structure, I'm going to go through the main results and how major events that happened during the third quarter and then Kleber is going to go more in detail about our results and cash flows.

So as we disclosed in the market, we had an important improvement in operations. As I mentioned in the last quarter, first and second quarter was the weaker of the year, and we could see that production was pushed towards the second semester this is an important improvement on Q3, and we project another improvement to Q4. So we should continue to grow in terms of production as we are now reaching higher grades or high productivity in most of our mines. So we reached a production of 96,000 gold equivalent ounce. This is a 27% increase compared to the last quarter. I'm going to walk you through mine by mine in the 2 slides ahead. so we can understand what is going on and project what can happen on the fourth quarter.

So when we see the 9 months, it's 253,000 ounces of gold equivalent, we reiterate our guidance to be between 340,000 and 290,000 ounces until the end of the year. This higher production means also to have a record high, slightly above the first quarter of this year, $386 million of revenues, another 15% improvement quarter-by-quarter. That also translated in an EBITDA at $237 million. When we see the last 12 months -- the last 9 months of EBITDA, it's $677 million. This is already above what we performed in the full year of '25, and if we look at the last 12 months, it's $886 million. Understanding that the fourth quarter, we should have an improvement in terms of our production. In terms of our in sustaining cash cost, we are now million.

Now we start to have improvements on that also improvements that I'm going to walk you through that's going to happen on the other operations. So although if you compare to the guidance of this year, you're going to see that we are above the guidance, but the improvements that we see happening in the fourth quarter gave us a comfortable zone to meet the guidance for the full year in terms of our in sustaining cash costs. Recurring free cash flow strong, $124 million, enough to continue to be able to grow, develop projects, investment exploration and also update the dividends. So we will continue to be a leveraged company walking the talk. We always mentioned to the market that we would be able to develop a greenfield projects invest in exploration chicken life of mine and do M&As while keeping an important dividend yield and low leverage. So this is another quarter that we show in the market that this is possible due to the very high return and strong cash flows we have from our operations. We also declared another strong dividend, $0.72 per share.

And when we add that with the $10 million of buyback that happened during Q3, it's a yield over the last 12 months, we continue to be one of the highest dividend yields in the industry, why we are growing. Additional important events, and I'm going to have a slide about this. I don't want to give details now, but Teradata project on time, on budget developing according to the plan. Kleber also we raised an additional $200 million of syndicated loan. That happened during this quarter and improved our cash position above $400 million. We also announced the fleet in sources that will be -- will provide us an important opportunity to continue to reduce our all-in sustaining cash cost and control inflation bravely the inflation, as we will walk you through the industry all-in sustaining cash cost is going up. We are going up slightly, but yet way below the average of the industry, which put us in the first semester of this year as in the first quartile in terms of all-in sustaining cash cost.

Important event also is capital world with vessels continued to buy more shares on our -- during the third quarter and reached recently, about 10% of the capital structure of oil. So now they have 10.2% of our shares. Next slide. In terms of safety, we had no lost time incident during quarters a very important, another quarter without any lost time incident. I always mentioned that it's important to combine always not important to combine, but strong results comes along with also a strong incidents and low incidence level. Important also that as we are implementing artificial intelligence all over our company. There's also important improvements that we are doing on safety standards going through artificial intelligence so that we gather more information and start acting way above when we predictably -- so we can predict when and where the next event can help of incidents can have that and then prevent that.

So all the team is working on to have this advanced tools so that we can improve even further our safety standards. In terms of stability of structures, all of them has been gone through due diligence and inspections and all the that are under the safety levels. And according to the Brazilian regulations and all the international regulations. On the left side of this slide, I will highlight the continuous growth that we've been growing since Q3 '25, actually since Q2 '25 on the last 12 months. So now we are performing 335,000 ounces of production in the last 12 months. As you can see, record high production on Q3. While we continue to see improvement that's happening in Q4 that will replace the Q4 last year with 82,000 ounces with a stronger so that will continue to the important upward trends in terms of production for oral mines.

And when we go mine by mine, we had going from the bottom to the important, important improvement in Aranzazu. We could see that the higher grades would come during the second semester. Management is also working in higher throughput, so improving also the plant, the combination of higher grades and better performance lead us to a higher production. In a small part of this is also, unfortunately, due to the lower gold prices than in the higher copper price. So that conversion happens and it's favorable, but most of the improvement comes from productivity and grades. [indiscernible], we saw a slight improvement in Q3. And again, Q4 is the quarter that we're going to have a very strong production on [indiscernible].

In Aranzazu as well, we should continue to see a small improvements for Q4. Apoena, we will see a significant improvement in terms of production in Q4. This is just about grades that we are already reaching on the pit that we're going to go through the plant. Masa, as I mentioned, to the vessels on last quarter, we had some challenges on pilot and stacking during Q2 that we know that the lag, it's a leaching pattern also the lag of why you new stack and produce happens to have 30, 40, 60 days. So we knew that the production would decrease during Q3, and now we know that's going to increase during Q4 because all the challenges has been overcome. And now we are stacking as we projected of even a little bit above our reprojected so that will result in an improved production almost, we knew also that we were hitting a lower grade. The mine plan is not, as I mentioned, gold. We are now sometimes in the very thin veins or straight veins and grade goes up, grade goes down. So it's normal for you to have a stronger and weaker quarter.

What cannot be is not predictable, right? So we know that the Q3 would be weaker. Now we know that Q4 can also be slightly better than Q3. Borborema, that's how again, we hit strong grades. And also now we have already implemented two new filters, debottlenecking the plant. So we should see -- continue to see strong production in Borborema during Q4. MSG, the turnaround is still going on, but it's important to see the first signs of what we were telling -- talking about gain in productivity gain in production when over the top down to bottle up and put more and develop more on the ground. So we are now starting to have a small percentage of ore coming from underground on the methodology bottom up. So that improves the grades of the plant.

And then on Q4, we will gradually improve, then we mix low grade that is on the top as an open pit with higher grade underground. And as we go and turn around as we advanced on development of the underground terminals, we will be more gradually to more and more increase the underground ore, which will increase average grades to the clot. And also, management has been doing significant cost savings, cost restructurings and also debottlenecking the plant so that we can gain even more efficiency for next year, putting us in a position to be able to produce close to 80,000 ounces and close to $2,000 per ounce all-in sustaining cash cost. So in terms of our sustaining cash costs, we had a slightly decrease from Q2 to Q3, that came mostly by MSG that showed some significant improvements.

Also Aranzazu are going through higher grades. If we're not the MSG or in sustaining cash cost would be at 173 million which is already the first part time in the industry, although yet we see room to improve. When we looked at the next quarter, we will have improvement in -- and as we continue to perform well, we will see a significant improvement in Apoena, good improvement in Minas, almost slight improvement due to the higher grades. Borborema stable to the fourth quarter, perhaps lower cash cost as well. So we will see fourth quarter coming down in terms of our sustaining cash costs, putting us on the comfort cost to meet the guidance, perhaps closer to the top end of the guidance, but yet in the guidance.

And I would also highlight that when we projected the guidance, the exchange rate was different than what happened during the 9 months was for Brazil, that's more important to us 5.5%, while the performance was close to 5%. Now we are back to 5.5%. So that only this is 80 ounces per $80 per ounce in terms of in sustaining cash costs. If we were at the same exchange rate of their budget. So that during the fourth quarter, we have improvements on grades, accrues and performance and also a better exchange rate in Brazil. Era Dorada, we already reached over 13% of physical progress. The earth moving of the operational plateau is completed. We started the civil works. And as we can see on the picture in the middle, the CIL tanks start to be built on the right side, all the infrastructure of our calling the underground as we are advancing on the underground, it will be more and more important gradually to improve the infrastructure and also cooling machines in order to keep the temperature low.

This is a geothermal area that has hot water, and we are pumping already out of water out of the underground while calling so that we created the right environment for everybody to work. On the left side on the pictures, we continue to have a very strong support from the community. It's now over 1,500 hours of a dialogue with the community neighbors constant dialogue open table with each of them, we have Era Dorada house at the main city that people can come and make questions. So it's a full transparency project we're hiring local people. We are motivating and new suppliers to form within query close to the operations. And while we will -- we are investing on the purified water to provide them first municipality in Guatemala to have access to purify the water will be the communities around Era Dorada, once we finish the investment along next year, then we'll be able to provide qualified volume to the communities.

And the Shell thermal plant, we continue to advise on the engineering. We are now looking for potential partners to invest in geothermal with us that can bring the know-how and operate and do the partnership with ore. So this project will be fully sustainable with renewable energy renewable water and also a very strong community relations and focusing on hiring and training local people. We now have 795 people employed as of September Guatemalan understanding that during the construction, sometimes we have a very specialized skills do it for the underground development and also for building the plant and that we should increase -- gradually increase this percentage hiring local people.

MSG, again, a very important first quarter with just beginning of the results of the turnaround. We already generated in on EBITDA, and we continue to do advanced development on the underground activities so that we now can gradually inverter top down to bottom up and make more high-grade underground instead of low grade that is on the also on the top. So we will see improvements going through the Q4. And of course, major improvement is going to come during 2027. We will go through in more detail [indiscernible] participate, go directly there in New York or see the video or see the live video that we will walk you through major achievements happening also in safety standards. So there being important updates in the expiration. So please attend that we can walk you through what's going on in MSG that can become very -- enhance the potential and will become a very important mine for our miners from '27 and so a -- with that, I turn the floor to Kleber to walk you through on the financial results.

João Cardoso

Thank you, Rodrigo. Good morning, everyone. We're going to start, as we always do, with a summary of the main financial KPIs for the reporting quarter for the previous quarters and accumulated last 12 months at the end of each reporting period. Starting with the net revenues. We are reporting net revenues of $36 million is a record high that we are reporting for a single quarter. That's driven by the increase of production that radio was showing. And when we look to the last 12 months, our revenues are exceeding $1.4 billion.

And we see there has been a steady progress quarter-over-quarter aligned with our growth story. When we go to adjusted EBITDA, it's a similar story. We're reporting a strong EBITDA to $237 million up this quarter, also driven by the increase in production the last 12 months now at $886 million and is already the 13th increase in a row of our last 12 months EBITDA, again, consistent with our growth story. Moving to the bottom of the page, in terms of net income, our net income this quarter, $135 million coming down from previous quarter, but that's mainly because on the previous quarter, we had no cash nonrecurring gain related to the gold hedges because of the decrease of gold prices during the second quarter. If we exclude that noncash gain, which was much smaller this quarter, I'm going to show later. We see also an increase in net income. O

n the bottom of the page, we see we're coming from $97 million adjusted net income on Q2 to $120 million now on Q3, consistent with what we see increasing aim in terms of cash and net debt, we remain in a very comfortable position in terms of cash and balance sheet. Our net debt basically stable throughout the quarter and close to $180 million by the end of Q3. Our financial leverage also basically stable in a couple of quarters already at 0.2x net debt and we see a significant improvement in our cash [indiscernible] cash position, now close to $420 million at the end of the quarter with the proceeds of the syndicated loan that we closed in September, $200 million. And now we are in a good position to continue funding the growth of the company, especially Era Dorada from now on.

Now looking at the main items that explain the adjusted EBITDA and adjusted net income between adjusted EBITDA adjusted net income in the quarter. out of the $237 million adjusted EBITDA. Burger was the highlight. We saw it's our -- was very strong in terms of production, [indiscernible] is our lowest cash cost as well, so contributing with $7 million EBITDA. Aranzazu, also a very strong performance in Q3, combined with favorable copper prices adding another $60 million always also coming strong ours in [indiscernible] and we highlight as well as Rodrigo mentioned, MSG, already reporting $24 million EBITDA in the quarter is still in the turnaround phase.

Moving to the next item. We see depreciation monetization, $30 million, basically consistent with our expectation. If we compare it to the same period of last year, there is an important increase but that's mainly related to the growth of the company. So the same period of last year, we didn't have MSG. Borborema was not in commercial production yet. So not depreciating. So that explains the increase in depreciation Financial expenses, we would highlight, as I mentioned before, the noncash gain with the market to market of the gold hedge. It was much smaller this quarter was only $13 million. And we had realized losses with gold hedges. We paid $34 million for the gold colors that were settled and paid during Q3, from now on, if you take November from November '26 to June 2028, we still have about 141,000 ounces in gold colors that is going to expire mostly now until mid of 2020. Income tax expense is pretty much consistent with the results of our operations. Then we had some smaller items in other income and provisions bringing the net income to $135 million.

And then here on the right side of the page, the consolidation that we always show excluding some noncash items, mainly the unrealized gain in this case with the global hedges, bringing our adjusted net income to $121 million at the end of the quarter. And now here, we have all the details that explains the change in cash position throughout the quarter. So we see on the left side of the page, we started with $248 million in cash at the beginning of the quarter. On this left half of the page is what we call the recurring free cash flow to firm, which is the free cash flow to firm generated by the 6 minus production, not including the investment for growth, not including what we paid for the hedges, we show $158 million on the top of this page, those 6 mines degenerated $158 million in recurring free cash flow deducting $34 million that we paid in hedge comes to the $124 million recurring free cash flow that we're reporting, although the realized losses we have is included in the recurring free cash flow.

We remind you that it expires in the middle of '28. So that is going to go our way after 2028. Then here in the middle of the page, we see investment for growth of $63 million, mainly expansion of CapEx and now mainly is catching up, ramping up the investments, cash investments in Era Dorada and to the right side, it's more in the financial like items, mainly the net proceeds from that. We received $200 million from the syndicated loan had some debt amortization. So we had net proceeds of $182 million. Dividends and share repurchase, $71 million in Q3 and then Rodrigo highlighted at the beginning. If you take the $15 million recurring free cash flow that we generated for the quarter, net pay, both for the losses with the hedges both the dividends and share buybacks and also paid entirely for the expansion of CapEx we had in the quarter.

So with this, we end the presentation and open to your questions. Thank you.

Operator

[Operator Instructions]. Our first question comes from Mr. Marcelo Arazi from BTG Pactual.

分析師問答

Marcelo Arazi

Two questions on my side. So the first one on Era Dorada. It was very nice to see that the project has been evolving on time and within budget and with 13% physical progress. But I would like to understand a little bit more what are the main milestones and potential execution bottlenecks over the next 12 months. and especially regarding the geothermal side of the project, which remains a major concern for at investors that we normally talk to. And if I could make a second one about the fleet insourcing announcement. So a few questions here as well. So how quickly should these benefits materialize next year. What are the main risks associated with bringing those operations in-house? And what was actually the final trigger for Aura to decide and make this change?

Rodrigo Barbosa

Thank you, Marcelo. Can start answering here quick, and then I will ask Glauber that can give you more details about next steps in Era Dorada and also how he sees the in-source of the mine fleet upcoming in the next year with the potential also savings. The job thermal plant. I'm not sure if you asked about the short thermal plant is something that will come along the next few years. It's not -- we will not start construction anytime soon. We still need to partner and find the right partner and do the right our feasibility study in engineering. So that will -- once that will probably go into production after 2 or 3 years of operations. In the meanwhile, we have other alternatives to supply the power. And if we were mentioning about the potential high temperature underground, Glauber can also walk you through.

That's a not usual conditions to have the few other mines in the world and run actually even in the worst conditions. As a matter of calculating and do the proper underground infrastructure, pumping hot water and also bringing a cool air down, but Glauber can walk you through more on the detail of this situation. plus what he sees coming up in the next 12 months. Glauber?

Glauber Rosa-Luvizotto

Yes, as Rodrigo said, we are -- in terms of construction and preparation of the mining that we call the pre-operation. We are on track for that. So it's a lot of challenge from the hydrothermal water, but we have the support from the specialists and also a very robust plan to offset that point. Right now, everything that we found is as we expected, but we are still we are just in the beginning also, we are pumping the water because the key point is we sold to pump the water in advance. We should go down with the table water to make sure that the moment that we assess that region, there is no more hot water in that region and the rock had time to refresh. So it's what we are doing right now. So the pumps are under construction, and we are using some old -- the wells are under preparation. We are using some old ones. We are being able to reduce the table water and doing all the money development all time.

But in parallel, all the infrastructure that we have, like the refrigeration plant and all the other stuff, it's already on site, under commissioning. And I think that the main milestone in the next 12 months from the construction side -- we have the main equipment to arrive on site, the mill and all the other equipment and also put the mine development in the run rate. So it's -- we are considering -- right now, we have a contractor doing the underground development we are considering as well to have part of the work made by us. So we already bought some equipments that on time to be delivered in the end of this month and beginning of the next month.

And we have also some continence plan to bring to the region some experts because the -- the main point is find people with experience in the underground that there isn't much in Guatemala but we are considering like we are doing like a task force to train and prepare people and have some experts to mainly in this beginning to put the minor track. And the other question from the in-stores, the key point is that we are seeing a lot of adjustments in the cost when we went to the market to have to make an assessment about the price and cost to do that primarily to do that with by contractor the costs are being significantly higher than we are practicing. And also, we feel that we are prepared to -- considering the maturity that we have in the operations, we are prepared to assume is another part of the work.

But the process right now, we are in the transition to creating the company that you assume all the assets from the contractor we have the gate to be approved and cut. Once we have that in the beginning of next year, it should be fully [indiscernible]. Right now, we are in the transition phase. Everything is going well. We expected to be more efficient, mainly doing them properly maintenance to make sure that we have the reliability in the fleet. So I think that we can increase productive from the equipment and we can also see the impact in our cost.

So for next year, in terms of our costs, we have seen some reduction in the 3 mines, but most part of the disimburse for the equity that we are paying will be next year once we phase it in accordance with we are advancing in the contract that we need. So it's going on track.

Operator

Our next question comes from Mr. Lawson Winder from Bank of America Securities.

Lawson Winder

Thanks very much, Natasha and hello Rodrigo and team. Thanks for the presentation today. Nice quarter. If I could ask about MSG, I think that would be a very helpful place to start. Particularly in thinking about the growth trajectory into 2026. So what specifically changed underground at MSG during Q3 in development meters, stope availability, mining flexibility. And then what still needs to be completed before you consider the turnaround finished? And then all-in sustaining costs were well, I mean, very high in the quarter. Like what's your latest thinking on where all-in sustaining costs can go on a run rate basis for MSG?

Rodrigo Barbosa

Well, I'll let Glauber to answer, but we see all-in sustaining cash costs going close to $2,000 per ounce and production at $80,000 per year probably next year, right? But Gabe can go in through details how he sees the progress on Q3 and project to you what you can expect in Q4 and most important to next year.

Glauber Rosa-Luvizotto

Yes. The key point there is the performance in mining development. So we have a combination of two things. So when we assume as is a backlog in mine development, in mining preparation. And we also [indiscernible] to do the change in the mine method that require much more development in advance to go to the bottom of the [indiscernible] start to mine bottle work. we're still in preparation. So we have some areas in production already, but not fully capacity in the underground mining. It will take the I think that 4 or 5 months more to have the mine fully prepared and the reserve release in the time that is required in parallel, a bunch of changes has been made.

So we are improving the quality in the method that we mine to reduce the dilution, increase mining recovery and also reviewing all the contracts with significant reduction in our cost. We can see right now the reflect of -- how those changes will reflect because we are not in the in the full capacity. So I can say that we are spending more in development proportionally with what we are producing. So once we increase production, we do not -- will keep the same level of mine development because once we achieve the stabilization in the mine, we come back for the fully for the normal profile of mine development, but we are being able to feed the plant with more ore from the underground because right now.

Almost 50% of the ore came from the -- from some lower grade stockpiles from the surface because we are preparing the mine. But once we are putting much more room of mining the plant with better grade, the production will increase. And also, we will be able to stabilize the mine development in the underground. And the combination of those can give us the production close to the 80,000 ounces per year, and the cash costs are the in sustained costs should reduce significantly.

Rodrigo Barbosa

And again, an ore day, we'll provide a full detail on what has been done and the including all the physical measurements, the speed, how we are -- the savings Glauber mentioned, have important savings that can go on PORs 30%, 40%. So that I think it will be important to invite everybody to be there and see, and we also bring the manager of MSG so that we can interact directly also with him.

Lawson Winder

Yes, fantastic. I mean it's nice to see MSG improving substantially in Q3. If I could ask one more question, it would probably be on the reserve and resource update and your expectations around that. globally for the entire firm, whether you anticipate replacing reserves this year in mind. But then just particularly with respect to Apoen and [ Menosa ], your two really short mine lives, are you starting to see the potential to drive material expansion in mine life there?

Rodrigo Barbosa

We will share what we've been finding during the day. Apoena, yes. There are several -- now we are opening more. We are focusing a lot on the near mine. We opened a little bit on 20 kilometers, 30 kilometers, so finding very interesting intersections that we will -- we are now finalizing all the results and be able to publish them then before they ore a day. [indiscernible], it's still unknown. So this is where [indiscernible] we are less optimistic about extending life of mine. But pens, there will be important improvements, we believe.

Operator

Our next question comes from Mr. Rabi Nizami from National Bank of Canada. Please, Mr. Ravi, you may proceed.

Rodrigo Barbosa

Rabi, if you're talking, I think you are on mute. Yes. Maybe he has some connection problems. Let's go to the next one and then -- we'll still reserve our room for him.

Operator

Our next question comes from Mr. Matheus Moreira from Banco Bradesco.

Matheus Moreira

Just on my side. First, on CapEx. I mean, it caught our attention here that you're tracking well below your growth CapEx guidance for this year with a little bit over $130 million this birth year-to-date. While the low range of our guidance is of $260 million, right? So I'm just wondering how should we think of this CapEx for the fourth quarter specifically? Do you still expect to reach your guidance? Or should we see some spill out towards 2027? And does this somehow impact your time line for Era Dorado? That's my first question, and then I'll ask my second one.

Rodrigo Barbosa

Okay. There's no -- nothing is going different from the schedule, what Kleber can walk you through why you see this CapEx lower than the guidance of the year so far.

João Cardoso

Yes, Matheus, we have the expansion of CapEx, we have opportunities to be closer to the low end of the guidance or even below. That's mainly because that's actually good news. It's the negotiation we have been doing with providers comment, for example, for the project. So we are negotiating lower down payments that improves our cash position at the moment. But then in terms of whatever we don't spend this year to your question, yes, that would move to 2027, the CapEx for the project itself wouldn't change. It's just a matter of having more working capital like, let's say, now in 2026 because of these negotiations that we're doing in country.

Matheus Moreira

Great. That's very clear, Kleber. Maybe if I may, a second quick question on MSG is actually a follow-up. I mean, it was encouraging to see the operational performance in the quarter, right, which was much better than we were expecting. Still, I believe or from the operational conditions are wants to achieve, but definitely on track. I noticed that your production improved materially quarter-on-quarter. also because of higher throughput rates. And this in turn was also benefited by some material you recovered from the East pile, right? So I'm just wondering if you could provide more details on the stockpile. How big it is? What are the average grades? And when do you expect it to run out? I think you also mentioned a bit in the beginning that as underground might activities improves, you will rely less on these stockpiles, right? So just -- but I just wanted to get a sense on how big and how relevant this stockpile can be?

João Cardoso

The stockpile is not the most relevant part of the plan to recover the production. So it's just to complement or to keep the plant fully feed. Once we weren't able to fill you with more ore from the underground mine, but the focus is mainly to put the mining operation, debottleneck the mine and get some reserves release in advance to make sure that we can feed the plant with which room of mining that is the highest grade that we have because the stockpile is a marginal award that was left in the past for the other company. We are using that as an opportunity once we -- we have this spare capacity in the plant, but it's not the base of the plan for the growth.

Rodrigo Barbosa

Yes. The stockpile is just a buffer that we are using why we are doing the turnaround the grades you asked can vary, 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.4, but it'll be around this.

Operator

Our next question comes from Mr. Rabi Nizami from National Bank of Canada.

Rabi Nizami

So a couple of my questions have been answered, but move on to a few more. So on the CapEx run rate, you already answered that. But specifically looking at Era Dorada, how do you expect that the cadence of CapEx spend of that asset to proceed into Q4 and into next year?

Rodrigo Barbosa

Yes. Kleber, go ahead.

João Cardoso

Sorry, Ravi, can you repeat the question?

Rodrigo Barbosa

CapEx for Era Dorada you expect this to increase in Q4 and then next year.

João Cardoso

Yes. So in Q4, you should see a for tax increase. So that's normal. No. It's if you look into Borborema and Amos was the same. The first few years and first quarter is much lower than ramping up as you start hiring people and capitalizing in operational expenses and also receiving the equipment. So in Q4 is expected to have a significant increase. So we are expecting to move towards the low end of our expansion CapEx guidance for this year. And therefore, 2027, we expect to spend the deals to complete the project. So we're expecting to complete on budget. So there will be no see if there is a saving in '26, that's going to become additional CapEx in -- and then on Borborema, should we still expect an expansion study and the board decision by year-end. What's your meaning there on engineering, water supply, anything else to talk about in terms of timing.

Rodrigo Barbosa

Glauber, if you want to answer go ahead.

Glauber Rosa-Luvizotto

Yes, we are finalizing the study. So we expect it to publish to the end of this year. Yes. The main point is make sure that we have the best arrangement for the plant and how can we do the position and the expansion with not impact the production that is in the run rate. And also the water, we have some alternatives. We have just finalized the trade-offs that we have between the options and the costs of each 1 and the risks for each other and yes, we should be right to publish it to the end of this year.

Rodrigo Barbosa

And then in the meanwhile, as we do with all our minds, if you see how much we built then we started generating cash, then we started doing more exploration. And now we are doing the same with Borborema, we started generating cash last year. we start doing more investment in exploration, on physical, round trials, and there is important and interesting information that we will share during our day in Borborema, ahead of the feasibility study.

Rabi Nizami

Okay. Thank you for that. Just in the short term, I'm looking at the strip ratio ore line Q3 at 4.6%. There any guidance you can give us at this time with respect to how that evolves into Q4 and into next year?

Glauber Rosa-Luvizotto

Yes. We operate in the beginning, once the mine was opened when we assume. So they have their best work that they did the strip ratio was lower, but we should run much more closer to what was the Q3. But a little bit higher for next year once we should achieve the average strip rates for the mine. So it shouldn't be that low as was in the first semester of this year. but it should be close to what we have in Q3 and what we expect for Q4 and next year forward.

Rabi Nizami

I'll just ask one quick one and then sign off. Glauber, you discussed FX rates a bit guidance being set 5.5 and recently, that's turned more into paper. Could you just comment on fuel prices as well going forward? How does that affect your costs? And what should we think about going into Q4 next year?

João Cardoso

Yes. So using parts like everyone else, but it's not a significant portion of our costs. It's depending on the operation can be between 5% or 8% of the cost metrics. So it's not negligible, but it's not that high. So FX, for example, where there was comment so -- the average for the year is being close to BRL 5.1 and our guidance was for 550, for example, last year as well. So FX has been the main impact. But yes, we're seeing some high cost pressure, but that has not been the main impact in our numbers.

Operator

Our next question comes from Mr. [indiscernible].

Unknown Analyst

I have two questions here as well. My first one is on capital allocation. Now with the balance sheet now carrying very low leverage, and of course, there are the investments on Era Dorada. But how are you thinking about the next phase of capital allocation and potential new targets of investments? Are you guys still looking at copper and gold opportunities? Or for now, you're holding and seeing what happens next? And how do you see the mix of M&A and cash returns for shareholders as well? And my second one is on the mining fleet in sourcing if you guys also see other potential initiatives to reduce costs and all-in as you already did with the mining fleet at Apoena [indiscernible]. Those are my two questions.

Rodrigo Barbosa

In terms of M&As, we continue to see opportunities. We continue to invest time understanding what are the interesting M&A to do invest in trying to do transactions. So M&A continues to be an important part of the story. We know very much how to get up to 600 or more 1,000 ounces of gold equivalent. We think the mines that we have or the mines are going to develop. But we want -- we aim to be at 1 million ounces, and that will happen only if we continue to pursue M&A, and we will continue to see alternatives. And then it's gold and copper, right? We are not looking at other alternatives, whoever investing in order wants to be exposed to gold and copper. And in the Americas, right, we are not looking alternatives in Africa, Asia or Australia. So we prefer Americas called and copper. And examples are projects at Borborema, Era Dorada, Greenfield that we can develop or projects that are running like that we see an angle to optimize operations.

And your second question was about the opportunity to reduce cost. We are always looking how to reduce the cost. We are always looking how to improve our operations. That's one of the reasons that we are -- we came from a few years ago our third quartile in the industry. Now we are first quartile in the in terms of our in sustaining cash costs. And we do see opportunities next year, yes, for the mine in source fleeting. We are also doing what we call a zero-based budget this year, refuel line by line in each of the areas, and we're already finding some opportunities but that then we will be able to include in the guidance for next year. So we see, yes, some opportunities for cost reduction along the next years.

Operator

Our next question comes from Mr. Henrique Marques from Goldman Sachs.

Henrique Tavian Marques

I wanted to understand, Rodrigo, what is your priorities as we enter 2027? I believe Eldorado will definitely be the top 1 for you. But I wanted to know like how do you plan to spend your time in each one of your mines? I know each one of them has its own next stage, next phase. So just wanted to understand what really is the priority for you after Era Dorada?

And if I may add one more question. Just regarding the all-in sustaining cash cost of pen I mean it was really high this quarter, and I think it was mostly related to the [indiscernible] CapEx. So I just wanted to understand if this was more of a one-off or it's something that we should still see for a while? And if this was already expected to happen at this moment?

Rodrigo Barbosa

Okay. So in terms of priorities, as you mentioned, first priority is construction of Era Dorada on time on budget, together with turnaround of MSG to be able to produce 80,000 ounces at $2,000 of in sustaining cash costs. Then, of course, there's always optimizations on improvements going operations. But I would highlight then it's continue to invest in exploration and expand the life of mine, so that we can increase resources and reserves at very interesting, a significant potential for us to continue to do so. And then M&As, right? We know very much how to get to 600,000 ounces, and now we want to achieve to -- we will be able to achieve our 1 million ounces.

So I invest a significant part of my time prospecting and talking, understanding what would be the potential M&As to do. We don't have a target. I want to do an M&A next year. but we do want to continue to grow through M&As, right? So in the end, it's the same strategy that we had 5 years ago. investment in greenfield projects, increased production, reinvesting life of mine increased resource and reserves and continue to grow through M&A. That's what we've been doing in the last 5 years and as we will continue to do in the next 3 to 5 years.

And then you asked [indiscernible] this quarter was much higher than the last quarter, but we think what we projected. What happened this quarter that we've significantly advanced at the node pit, while we didn't reach the high grade for the full quarter. And now we are there already. So the strip ratio has mostly been done. So we're going to see higher production and higher grades coming in the fourth quarter. So we will see a reduction on the in sustaining cash cost for the fourth quarter. And for next year, we will put on the guidance as we have it probably in January, February.

Operator

Our next question comes from Mr. Graham Tanaka.

Rodrigo Barbosa

Mr. Tanaka, if you're talking, you are on mute.

Very well. So with that, I will conclude our earnings call. Just a quick wrap up. Aura is walking the talk. We are growing production. We are producing 95,000 ounces. This year, we'll be in the target 340i, 290 million. So we are developing greenfield project, Era Dorada is coming moving according to the plan. We are doing also important investment exploration that with you again to be in rods that we can walk you through more in the details of what is going on exploration. We continue to look alternatives for lowering all-in sustaining cash costs, which we are already in the first quartile, but we are not happy.

We want to -- we see opportunities to continue to decrease our own sustaining cash cost while we continue to see M&A. So again, thank you very much. And I did say important thing, right? Doing all of that, paying dividends, significant dividends to our shareholders give the yield together with the share buyback, while we are doing all these investments in exploration, expansion and improvements, maintaining the low net debt-to-EBITDA level. Again, will be important day already on November 30, New York NASDAQ. Please be able to attend there. So we will be able to guide you in more detail what is going on in Aura. I

Operator

Aura's conference is now closed. We thank you for your participation and wish you a nice day.