Buenaventura (BVN) Q3 2026 earnings review
Buenaventura's new mine barely produces, but its profits keep rising
Buenaventura, Peru's biggest listed precious-metals miner, earned more money while the price it gets for silver dropped. Revenue of $545 million sat 26% above a year ago, mostly because copper and gold fetched higher prices. The company also cut its plan for this year's gold, after the new San Gabriel mine made almost nothing in three months. By our math San Gabriel must now produce twenty times what it managed last quarter to reach even the lowered range.
| Revenue | $545 million 26% above a year ago by our math |
|---|---|
| Profit before interest, tax and depreciation, own mines | $261 million 48% of sales, against 52% in the June quarter |
| Silver price received | $57.82 an ounce $89.52 in the June quarter |
| Full-year gold plan | Cut 15% 112,000-131,000 ounces, from 133,000-153,000 |
⚖️ Verdict: 🔴 Bearish
The story got worse, because the mine meant to replace Buenaventura's ageing operations slipped again. Its target for this year's gold fell for a third time since last autumn, and operations chief Juan Carlos Ortiz pushed full capacity out to 2028. On the other side, the miner holds more cash than debt and directors approved an interim dividend, so a weaker plan costs owners nothing today. The finance chief also trimmed what he expects Cerro Verde to pay out this year.
The question now is whether machinery or the ore itself holds San Gabriel back. If the filters and drying yards are the limit, the repairs due by next May should lift output through 2027. If the rock is the limit, gold recovery settles near 70% and the mine never earns what its budget assumed. The recovery rate Buenaventura reports for December starts to settle it.
🐂 Bull Case
El Brocal Reached Its Planned Processing Rate
El Brocal supplies nearly all of Buenaventura's copper: 13,534 of the 13,602 tonnes mined in the quarter. The release says the operation achieved "a processing rate of 13,500 tons per day (tpd) by quarter-end", the rate chief executive Leandro Garcia had promised for September.
Output grew 7% from a year ago, and the price Buenaventura received for copper kept climbing, so this one metal offset the silver it lost elsewhere in the portfolio. Yumpag, its other permitted expansion, also mined to plan.
- Copper produced: 13,602 tonnes, 7% above a year ago
- Price received: $15,190 a tonne, 52% above a year ago
- Full-year target: 48,000-53,000 tonnes, unchanged
What to watch: Garcia is expanding the plant from 13,000 to 17,000 tonnes a day, but he warned that refined copper will stay "almost the same" over the long term. More ore at thinner grades would add cost without adding metal.
Buenaventura Paid Its Biggest Interim Dividend
Buenaventura owns 19.58% of Cerro Verde, one of Peru's largest copper mines, and the cash that stake returns has become a main source of funds. The group collected $126 million of dividends during the quarter, and that is why free cash flow reached $242 million.
Directors then approved an interim dividend of $0.5508 a share, a fifth of the first nine months' profit. By our math that is about $140 million, more than half of what the miner handed out for the whole of last year.
What to watch: the last Cerro Verde payment before December, and the annual dividend the board proposes at its next meeting. Finance chief Daniel Dominguez has already trimmed what he expects from the copper mine this year, so the cash behind the payout turns on prices nobody at Buenaventura sets.
🐻 Bear Case
San Gabriel Produced Almost No Gold
San Gabriel is the mine Buenaventura built to take over from its oldest operations, and it poured its first bar last December. In the three months to September it produced 599 ounces. Orcopampa, which the operations chief Juan Carlos Ortiz says has "a short term life in the order of 2-3 years", produced 12,362.
Processing stopped for most of the quarter while crews reinforced the first of three tailings filters. The release says output "was below projections due to lower ore throughput during the ramp-up phase". Mining carried on regardless, leaving roughly 100,000 tonnes of ore sitting in a stockpile.
- Gold produced in the quarter: 599 ounces
- Nine months: 5,059 ounces, against a full-year range of 15,000-20,000
- Plant rate at quarter-end: about 1,300 tonnes a day, against the 1,700 planned
- Mining rate at quarter-end: 1,700 tonnes a day, feeding the stockpile
What to watch: the mine has to deliver about 12,400 ounces in the fourth quarter to hit the middle of its lowered range, twenty times the third quarter by our math. Another shortfall would leave Buenaventura without a replacement for Orcopampa until 2028.
Buenaventura Got a Third Less for Its Silver
Silver is the metal Buenaventura sells most of, and the price it actually received fell to $57.82 an ounce from $89.52 in the June quarter. Those figures "include provisional pricing and final pricing adjustments", so they move with the market and with revisions to earlier shipments.
"The third quarter once again demonstrated the strength of our portfolio and the resilience of our business model," Garcia told investors. The portfolio did hold up, because copper and zinc earned more while silver gave way. But the margin on the mines he runs himself narrowed for a second straight quarter.
- Silver price received: $57.82 an ounce, after $89.52 and $99.29 earlier this year
- Profit margin before interest, tax and depreciation: 48%, after 52% and 62%
- Cash operating costs: 52% of sales, from 48% in the June quarter by our math
- Silver output: 3.36 million ounces, a third straight quarterly decline
What to watch: the silver price Buenaventura reports for the fourth quarter. Garcia said lower commercial deductions helped unit costs this time, and those deductions ease as the metal cheapens, which softens the blow to profit without undoing it.
Costs Rose at Both of the Big Mines
Buenaventura reports a cash cost for each unit of metal it digs out, before any spending on new capacity. At Uchucchacua and Yumpag, its two silver mines, that figure reached $11 an ounce, above the same quarter of last year.
Garcia listed four reasons: a more selective mining method at Yumpag, extra ground support, the switch to running its own fleet, and thinner silver in the plant feed. El Brocal's copper cost $5,470 a tonne, which he tied to "higher cement consumption for tailings management", scheduled maintenance and that same fleet change.
What to watch: whether these costs settle once the fleet transition finishes in the first half of next year. Three of the four reasons Garcia named are decisions rather than accidents, so they ought to wash through; thinner ore will not.
Risks This Quarter Didn't Answer
Buenaventura published production and sales volumes in October and gave the financial detail by telephone, so several standing worries got no new numbers at all this quarter.
- Capital spending: the 2026 budget rose to about $500 million in August; no quarterly figure appeared, and none for 2027.
- Accounting controls: the $58.8 million overstatement of associate income in the first quarter was corrected, and nobody has said what failed.
- El Nino: Garcia reported "significant progress" on preparing for the rains and put no cost or tonnage at risk.
- Julcani: a decision on selling the mine was promised for this quarter and did not arrive.
- Peru: no word on permitting or community relations at any project.
👓 Other Themes
Buenaventura Takes Over Its Own Mining Fleet
Contractors are giving way to Buenaventura's own crews and machines. Uchucchacua and Yumpag are now mined entirely in-house; El Brocal's underground production reaches that point by the second quarter of next year; San Gabriel is already there. Ortiz put next year's underground equipment bill at $25 million to $30 million, most of it landing in the first half.
Trapiche Drills While Buenaventura Seeks a Partner
Trapiche is Buenaventura's undeveloped copper deposit. Projects chief Renzo Macher said drilling has begun, half of it "for exploring the primaries" and half to take fresh samples "to see if we can reduce the acid consumption" through bacterial leaching. Engineering and permits for an access road and a power line continue. Garcia said he is "open to de-risk the investment, evaluating the possibility to have a partner there".
💲 Other KPIs
Buenaventura now holds far more cash than borrowings: about $1 billion against roughly $693 million of debt by our math. Net debt measured against yearly profit stood at 0.41 times a year ago and is now minus 0.25. Nothing was repaid; the cash simply arrived.
The miner shipped 87% of the gold it dug, so unsold metal built up again. San Gabriel did the reverse, selling 1,418 ounces while producing 599 as it cleared earlier output. A gap like this is normal for a concentrate seller, but revenue lags what the mines actually move.
What Buenaventura gets for gold has eased each quarter this year: $4,875, then $4,342, now $4,216. It remains 17% above the same period of 2025, which is why revenue climbed while ounces did not. These prices carry adjustments to earlier shipments.
🔮 Guidance
Cut, for the third time since last autumn: 70,000-90,000 ounces, then 48,000-55,000, then 25,000-30,000, now this. Nine months have brought 5,059 ounces, so the fourth quarter must deliver about 12,400 to reach the middle. Buenaventura tied the change to "temporary constraints related to the tailings filtration system".
Cut. The middle of the range drops 15%, and this is the first time Buenaventura has restated the number since San Gabriel's problems began. Nine months brought 89,556 ounces, leaving roughly 31,900 for the final quarter by our math, a tenth above the third. Its older mines are running ahead of plan, which absorbs part of the reduction.
Raised, by about 8% at the middle. Set against that, output has slipped for three quarters running and nine months brought 10.9 million ounces, so the fourth needs roughly 4.2 million, about a quarter more than the third by our math. Yumpag's higher approved mining rate has to supply the difference.
Unchanged, and the easiest of the targets. Nine months brought 37,975 tonnes, so the final quarter needs only about 12,500 by our math, below the 13,602 just delivered. El Brocal hit its planned 13,500 tonnes of ore a day, and Garcia is pushing that towards 17,000.
New in this release. Nine months brought 12,406 tonnes, so the fourth quarter has to make 6,100 to 8,400 by our math, against 4,270 in the third. Uchucchacua supplies almost all of it, and the whole range rests on that mine lifting output by at least half in three months.
Lower than the earlier plan. Ortiz said the mine will process "600 thousand tons for the whole year 2027", which works out near 1,640 tonnes a day by our math. In August the plan called for 3,000 a day by the second half of next year. Ortiz added that "we will be reaching the full nameplate capacity by the end of 2028".
Cut. Dominguez said the copper mine has paid $270 million so far and that "we expect an additional dividend by the end of the year should be in the order of $50 million to $70 million". That lands below the range set out in August. For next year he pointed to a planning figure of about $250 million.
❓ Key Questions
How much gold sits in each tonne at San Gabriel?
Ortiz gave October's plant rate and recovery, but not the head grade. Without it nobody can tell whether the shortfall comes from broken filters or from ore that holds less metal than the block model promised.
What will Buenaventura spend next year?
The 2026 budget went to about $500 million in August. These materials carry no quarterly spending figure and no 2027 envelope, even though three mines are converting to company-owned fleets and Trapiche is drilling.
What happened to the Julcani decision?
In August Buenaventura said a final answer on selling the mine could come this quarter. Neither the release nor the call mentioned it, and Julcani's full-year target was revised in the same document.
Can Uchucchacua really double its lead output?
The unchanged full-year lead range needs 6,100 to 8,400 tonnes in the fourth quarter after 4,270 in the third. Either the mine has a plan for that, or the range is no longer realistic.
What caused the $58.8 million accounting error?
First-quarter income from associates was overstated and corrected retrospectively. Buenaventura has not described the control that failed or what it changed, and associate income drives a large share of profit.