Wheaton Precious Metals: the path to one million gold-equivalent ounces — and the silver upside not yet in guidance

## The growth story: one million gold-equivalent ounces, now expected around 2029

CEO Randy Smallwood told host Jimmy Connor that Wheaton Precious Metals is tracking the top end of its 2025 guidance of 600,000 to 670,000 gold-equivalent ounces (GEO — total output restated in gold terms so silver and gold count on one scale). Guidance issued in early 2025 targeted one million GEO by 2031. With partners accelerating expansions and recent deals adding immediate production, Smallwood now expects to reach that level by about 2029. He frames that as roughly 50% to 60% production growth over the next four years, before any new acquisitions, on a balance sheet he calls "incredibly strong."

The path runs through gold. When Smallwood became CEO in 2011, his team concluded that silver opportunities alone could not reach one million GEO, so Wheaton added gold streams — Salobo in 2013, then 2015 and 2016, plus Constancia and others. In 2024, 65% of revenue came from gold. Recent additions include the Hemlo transaction, which brings immediate production, and Spring Valley. Connor notes the market cap has grown from about $10 billion when Smallwood took over to well over $50 billion today; Smallwood says he focuses on production rather than the market cap it produces.

## How the streaming model removes cost risk

A stream is an upfront payment to a mine operator for the right to buy a fixed share of its future metal at a set, below-market price per ounce. Smallwood explains the protection this builds: the upfront payment defines the capital cost, the ongoing payment is fixed per ounce with a small inflation adjustment, and a contract clause caps what Wheaton pays at the spot price. Capital and operating costs are defined and limited in the agreements, so cost inflation at a mine does not flow through to Wheaton as it does to operators.

Deal terms have matured. Early streams ran to fewer than 10 pages; today's carry completion tests, asset security, and parent guarantees — a parent company's contractual promise to stand behind a deal. Smallwood argues a stream pays full value for the metal, independent of how a seller's equity trades, which is why he calls it the most competitive capital available to a miner. Over the past five years, he says, about 80% of Wheaton's deal-making has been gold streams.

## Pascua-Lama: the lessons that shaped the playbook

The most instructive segment covers Pascua-Lama, Barrick's gold-silver project on the Chile-Argentina border whose permits were pulled in 2013. Wheaton paid $625 million in 2009 for 25% of the silver, at $3.90 per ounce plus a 1% inflation kicker. Smallwood cites two mistakes. Payments were scaled to dollars spent rather than construction progress, and the project burned through its budget while only about 30% mechanically complete — new construction streams now key off mechanical completion. Compensation silver collected from Barrick's other South American mines, about $375 million worth, had a fixed end date in 2018; he wants such protection open-ended going forward.

He remains constructive on the deposit. Under its original plan, Pascua-Lama would produce about 40 million ounces of silver and 700,000 ounces of gold per year, with Wheaton's 25% share close to 10 million silver ounces annually. The first mill line is 90% built, the second 40%. The stream sits outside the current production schedule, but a retained parent guarantee gives Wheaton the right to demand full repayment from Barrick — an option he says has always existed.

## Risk discipline as the differentiator

Smallwood says companies approach Wheaton to "stream political risk," and it declines. On Cobre Panama, he says Wheaton bid highest but walked away when no parent guarantee was offered, leaving a peer — Franco, in his telling — holding the risk when the mine was later idled. In managing the portfolio, Wheaton visits every partner site at least annually, has adjusted more than half of its contracts to unlock value, and has sold or returned streams six or seven times. A small, managed portfolio, he argues, beats a shelf of royalty "lottery tickets."

## The Swedish proof point

Smallwood retells the Zinkgruvan silver stream in Sweden as the model's economics in action. Weeks after the 2004 listing, Wheaton paid $75 million — $50 million cash plus $25 million in stock — for 100% of the mine's silver at $3.90 per ounce plus inflation, now about $4.50. The mine produces 1.8 to 2 million ounces a year and, by his count, holds more reserves today than at signing. With silver around $75 an ounce, he sizes the stream at roughly $140 million of annual value against the original outlay, and says it has already created over $1 billion.

## Silver optionality outside the production schedule

Wheaton is the world's fifth-largest silver producer, with 2025 guidance of 20 to 22 million ounces, and Smallwood calls 2025 a good year. The bigger silver upside sits outside guidance: Pascua-Lama at 9 to 10 million ounces a year to Wheaton, plus Navidad at 2 to 2.5 million. If both were built, he says Wheaton would rank among the largest silver producers again — and "might have to change our name back to Silver Wheaton."

His supply thesis underpins that view. Most silver is a byproduct of lead-zinc mining, few new lead-zinc mines are being built, and primary silver miners supply only 20% to 30% of world output, so he expects structural supply weakness. On price, he notes the gold-silver ratio — how many silver ounces one gold ounce buys — sat near 30-40:1 for decades, stretched to about 100:1, and now runs near 57. He would "not be surprised at all" to see silver above $100 by the end of 2026. That is the CEO's prediction, not a Pixys forecast.