3rd Mar 2026 08:42
(Alliance News) - Fresnillo PLC on Tuesday reported higher sales and profit in 2025, as it benefited from soaring gold and silver prices, enabling the miner to declare its highest dividend since listing.
"This was an exceptional year for Fresnillo. Our efforts to boost performance and reduce costs bore fruit and enabled us to achieve production and efficiency targets, while a positive price environment drove a significant increase in revenue," the London and Mexico City-based silver and gold miner said.
The FTSE 100 listing said pretax profit more than doubled to USD2.08 billion in 2025 from USD743.9 million in 2024, in line with market expectations.
Total revenue rose 31% to USD4.56 billion from USD3.49 billion, beating market expectations of USD4.36 billion, primarily due to the higher precious metals prices, mitigated by the lower volumes of all metals sold.
Chief Executive Octavio Alvidrez said Fresnillo continues "to benefit from a high precious metals price environment". The price of gold has risen 82% in the past 12 months while the silver price has nearly trebled.
Adjusted production costs of USD1.41 billion were down 11% on-year, primarily driven by the lower volumes processed at Herradura, Fresnillo, Cienega and Saucito, and the favourable effect of the devaluation of the Mexican peso versus the US dollar.
Significant efficiencies and cost reductions achieved at Herradura, and to a lesser extent at Cienega, were partly offset by an increase in cost at the Fresnillo district. The net operating efficiencies achieved in 2025 totalled USD13.8 million, Fresnillo said.
Gold production decreased 5.0% to 600,287 ounces in 2025 from 631,573 ounces the year prior, and silver production fell by 14% to 48.7 million ounces from 56.3 million.
"Operationally, silver production was in line with guidance and gold production exceeded expectations," said CEO Alvidrez.
"We continued to implement structural improvements across our mines to support future production and effectively manage the cost base, while also laying the foundations for future growth," he added.
Fresnillo proposed a 108.12 US cents per share final dividend, bringing the total dividend for 2025 to 128.92 US cents, its highest payout to date since listing back in 2008.
In 2024, Fresnillo paid a 32.5 cents total dividend, plus a one-off payout of 41.8 cents per share.
Fresnillo said the dividend payout in 2025 was above the traditional policy to pay out 50% of the profit attributable, permitted by strong cash generation throughout the year, which resulted in a high cash balance at year end.
"These results demonstrate our ability to leverage our high-quality asset base while managing costs carefully to expand margins, resulting in significant cash generation and returns to our shareholders," explained CEO Alvidrez.
For 2026, Fresnillo expects attributable silver production to be in the range of 42.0 to 46.5 million ounces, with gold production in the range of 500,000 to 550,000 ounces. Total production would be between 82 million and 91 million silver equivalent ounces.
Capital expenditure for 2026 is anticipated to be around USD765 million and will continue to be primarily focused on mining works, Fresnillo said. Exploration expenses are expected to be USD260 million, supporting intensified drilling at operating mines, continued de-risking of advance exploration projects, and starting drilling at Probe Gold.
JPMorgan said capex guidance was 30% above its forecast of USD571 million.
Shares in Fresnillo were down 2.7% at 4,008.00 in London on Tuesday morning. The wider FTSE 100 was 1.8% lower.
By Jeremy Cutler, Alliance News reporter
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