Vancouver-based Wheaton Precious Metals is predicting a 20% increase in gold production in the next 10 years.
The company met its 2021 production guidance of between 330,000 gold ounces to 345,000 gold ounces, producing 342,546 ounces. It also met its silver production guidance of between 25,500 ounces to 26,500 ounces, producing 25,801.
In 2021, Wheaton streamed 20,908 palladium ounces and 2,293 pounds of cobalt.
Wheaton met its guidance despite issues at its Sudbury operations, which included a labour dispute of three months and a shaft incident at the Totten mine which trapped 39 workers for several days. The mine was shut down for investigation in September, and is expected to reopen in late February, CBC reports.
Production in 2021 also suffered at the Salobo mine in Brazil, due to mine maintenance which slowed throughput. Salobo also experienced a conveyor belt fire in October.
For 2022, Wheaton expects gold production to remain unchanged, as stronger production at the Constancia mine in Peru, Salobo, Sudbury, and the Keno Hill mine in Canada will be offset by weaker production from the Antamina mine in Peru, Voisey's Bay in Newfoundland, and the 777 mine in Manitoba.
Production in the next five years will increase from growth at Salobo, the Stillwater mine in Minnesota, Constancia, Voisey's Bay, and the Marmato mine in Colombia. Wheaton is also forecasting incremental increases from its other streams at the Toroparu mine in Guyana, the Fenix gold project in Chile, the Blackwater project in British Columbia, the Marathon gold project in Ontario, the Rosemont project in Arizona, and the Santo Domingo project in Chile.
Wheaton is primarily a streaming company, and has streaming agreements for 24 operating mines and eight development-stage projects.
