Royal Gold Stock

Royal Gold, Inc. acquires and manages precious metal streams, royalties, and similar interests.

The company seeks to acquire existing stream and royalty interests or to finance projects that are in production, development or in the exploration stage in exchange for stream or royalty interests.

Segments

The company operates through two segments, Acquisition and Management of Stream Interests; and Acquisition and Management of Royalty Interests.

Acquisition and Management of Stream Interests — A metal stream is a purchase agreement that provides, in exchange for an upfront deposit payment, the right to purchase all or a portion of one or more metals produced from a mine, at a price determined for the life of the transaction by the purchase agreement. As of December 31, 2023, the company owned nine stream interests, which are on eight production stage properties and one development stage property. Stream interests accounted for 69% of the company’s total revenue for the year ended December 31, 2023.

Acquisition and Management of Royalty Interests — As of December 31, 2023, the company owned royalty interests on 29 production stage properties, 21 development stage properties and 119 exploration stage properties, of which it considers 52 to be evaluation stage properties. Royalty interests accounted for 31% of the company’s total revenue for the year ended December 31, 2023.

Properties

The company owns a large portfolio of stream and royalty interests on properties at various stages of review and development. The company’s material properties are located in Botswana, Canada, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Mexico and the United States. As of December 31, 2023, the company owned 9 stream interests and 169 royalty interests.

The company works with 134 different operators at its stream and royalty properties; 64 are headquartered in Canada, 23 are headquartered in the United States, and 47 are headquartered outside of Canada and the United States.

As of December 31, 2023, the company owned stream interests on 8 production stage properties and 1 development stage property.

As of December 31, 2023, the company owned royalty interests on 29 production stage properties, 21 development stage properties, and 119 exploration stage properties, of which it considers 52 to be evaluation stage properties.

Material Properties

Andacollo

Andacollo is an open pit mine and milling operation located in central Chile, Coquimbo Region at 30.25°S latitude and 71.10°W longitude and is operated by Compañía Minera Teck Carmen de Andacollo (CMCA), a 90% owned subsidiary of Teck. The Andacollo mine is located in the foothills of the Andes Mountains approximately 2 kilometers (km) southwest of the town of Carmen de Andacollo, 55 km southeast from the regional capital of La Serena, and Santiago is approximately 350 km south by air.

The company’s stream interest at Andacollo covers 1,225 exploitation mining concessions, including 1,174 concessions termed the Mining Properties and 51 concessions termed the Dayton Concessions.

Under the Long Term Offtake Agreement dated July 9, 2015, between CMCA and the company’s wholly owned subsidiary, RGLD Gold AG (RGLD Gold), it owns the right to purchase 100% of the gold produced from the Andacollo copper-gold mine until 900,000 ounces of payable gold have been delivered, and 50% thereafter. As of December 31, 2023, approximately 349,100 ounces of payable gold have been delivered to the company.

Although Andacollo is primarily a copper mine, the company’s stream agreement covers only gold. The company provides certain information on copper resources and reserves and production methods in order to provide a better understanding of the operation. The Andacollo operation consists of an open pit mine, sulfide concentrator and an inactive copper heap leach facility. Stream deliveries from Andacollo were approximately 22,400 ounces of gold during the year ended December 31, 2023.

Khoemacau

Khoemacau is a copper-silver development project located within the Ngamiland District of Botswana and is owned by KCM. The project’s mining area, Zone 5, and ore processing facilities, Boseto, are separated by a distance of 35 km. The Zone 5 mine area is generally south-west of the town of Maun and approximately 23 km south of the town of Toteng, and the Boseto facility is located at 20.56°S latitude and 22.95°E longitude with an approximate elevation of 1,000 m.

KCM controls 4040 km2 of mineral concessions of which the company’s stream interest covers an area of interest surrounding Mining License 2015/015L with an area of 176 km2 (17,600 hectares), measuring 8 km by 22 km, which covers all reserves and resources referred to as Zone 5. The company’s area of interest also includes the Mango NE deposit. Under the Silver Purchase and Sale Agreement dated February 24, 2019, between KCM and RGLD Gold, as amended, the company owns the right to receive 100% of the payable silver produced from Khoemacau until the delivery of 40.0 million silver ounces, and 50% thereafter.

The Khoemacau operation consists of a mechanized underground mine producing from the Zone 5 orebody and a sulfide ore flotation plant for ore processing at Boseto. The project completed construction in the second half of calendar 2021 and ramp-up of mining and processing operations to the target production rate of 3.65 Mtpa (10,000 tpd) was achieved in December 2022, as announced by KCM.

The Zone 5 mine is a bulk mechanized mine, designed for a total production rate of 3.65 Mtpa from three decline systems, with a single decline system production rate between 1 to 2 Mtpa. The mine design is based on a longhole open stoping mining method.

Mount Milligan

Mount Milligan is an open pit mine and is located within the Omenica Mining Division in North Central British Columbia, at 55.12°N latitude and 124.01°W longitude, approximately 155 km northwest of Prince George, 85 km north of Fort St. James, and 95 km west of Mackenzie.

At Mount Milligan, the company’s stream interest covers Mining Lease 631503 and 110 mineral claims covering 51,078.2 hectares.

Mount Milligan is a copper-gold porphyry deposit, consisting of two principal zones, the Main Zone and the Southern Star (SS) Zone. The Main Zone includes four contiguous sub-zones: MBX, WBX, DWBX and 66 (low-copper and high-gold grades, southeast of the MBX sub-zone). These geologic zones are the basis for the metallurgical test work.

Pueblo Viejo

The Pueblo Viejo mine is located in the province of Sánchez Ramírez, Dominican Republic, at 18.94°N latitude and 70.17°W longitude, approximately 100 km northwest of Santo Domingo, and is owned by a joint venture in which Barrick holds a 60% interest and is responsible for operations, and in which Newmont Corporation (Newmont) holds a 40% interest. At Pueblo Viejo, the company’s stream interest covers a Special Lease Agreement of Mining Rights (SLA), as amended in November 2009 and in October 2013.

Pueblo Viejo is a production stage property consisting of a conventional open pit surface mine and a complex processing circuit designed to process refractory gold-silver ore through pressure oxidation. Gold and silver are recovered through a CIL circuit and electrowinning. Barrick is in the final stages of completing a plant expansion and mine life extension project designed to increase throughput from 9 Mtpa to 14 Mtpa and allow the mine to maintain average annual gold production of approximately 800,000 ounces (100% basis) into the mid 2040’s.

The Pueblo Viejo mine operates a conventional open pit, utilizing a truck and shovel mining operation mining on 10-meter high benches. It achieved commercial production in January 2013 and completed its ramp-up to full design capacity in 2014. Current mining operations supplement fresh ore from the Monte Negro and Moore pits with stockpiled ore to achieve the required ore blend for ore processing.

Cortez

Cortez is a series of large open pit and underground mines, utilizing mill and heap leach processing, which are operated by Nevada Gold Mines LLC (NGM), a joint venture between Barrick and Newmont with respect to their Nevada operations. The company refers to the Cortez property and its multiple mines and projects as the Cortez Complex, and the terms Cortez and Cortez Complex are used interchangeably.

Cortez is located in the high desert region of the Basin and Range physiographic province. The mean annual temperature is 51°F. Precipitation averages six inches per year, primarily derived from snow and summer thunderstorms.

At Cortez, NGM directly controls approximately 124,000 hectares of mineral rights with ownership of mining claims and fee lands. There are 10,869 claims consisting of: 10,012 unpatented lode claims; 575 unpatented mill-site claims; 129 patented lode claims; 125 patented mill-site claims; and 28 unpatented placer claims.

The company owns multiple royalty interests at the Cortez Complex that have been acquired over time. The Cortez Complex is a combination of open pit and underground mining operations and projects owned and operated by NGM. NGM combined Newmont and Barrick assets across Nevada in 2019 to allow for operational integration between projects held by Newmont and Barrick. NGM is operated by Barrick.

The Cortez Complex comprises the Pipeline, Crossroads, Cortez Hills, Cortez Pits and Gold Acres open pit operations, the Cortez Hills underground mining operation, and the Goldrush, Fourmile and Robertson development projects. The Fourmile project is 100% owned by Barrick.

Peñasquito

The Peñasquito open pit mine and ore processing facilities are located approximately 200 km northeast of the city of Zacatecas and 27 km west of the town of Concepción del Oro, Zacatecas, Mexico, at 24.65°N latitude and 101.68°W longitude.

At Peñasquito, the company’s royalty interest covers 20 mining concessions comprising 45,823 hectares covering the Chile Colorado and Peñasco open pit mines.

The Peñasquito mine is a production stage property consists of two open pit surface mines and a complex flotation and pyrite leaching processing facility.

The open pit operation is undertaken using a conventional truck-and-shovel fleet that consists of five rope shovels, three hydraulic shovels, 3 front-end loaders paired with 82 haul trucks with a 312-tonne payload capacity, and nine blasthole drills.

The Peñasquito Operations consist of a sulfide plant that processes a maximum of 119,000 t/d of sulfide ore. The sulfide process plant design was based on a combination of metallurgical test work, previous study designs, and previous operating experience. The design is conventional to the gold industry and has no novel parameters.

The sulfide plant consists of the following units: coarse ore stockpile; grinding (semi-autogenous grind (SAG) and ball) mills circuit; augmented feed circuit (cone crusher, pebble crusher and high-pressure grind roll (HPGR)) and carbon, lead and zinc flotation circuits.

History

Royal Gold, Inc. was founded in 1981. The company was incorporated in 1981.