Title: Why One of the World's Biggest Gold Miners Is Doubling Down on Canada
Show: In the Money with Amber Kanwar
Guest: Ammar Al-Joundi, President & CEO, Agnico Eagle Mines (AEM); board member, CIBC; formerly Barrick
Date: 2026-09-17
URL: https://youtu.be/IoZjCT0MaFw
Length: 53:12 (3192s)
Note: YouTube auto-transcript. [music]/[laughter]/[clears throat]/[snorts] artifacts and pure fillers (um/uh, "you know" as interjection, contentless "sort of") removed and stutters/false starts collapsed — wording otherwise verbatim. Sponsor reads (ATB Financial / ATB Cormark Capital Markets, Raymond James, Wealthsimple Trade chart sponsor, Hamilton ETFs, EQB / EQ Bank, Haliburton Post House) and the show disclaimer are replaced with [Sponsor read — …] markers; timestamp lines kept in place. Auto-transcript name garbles corrected: "Agniko/Igno/Egnico/Nikico/Agneo/Ago/Ag/Egg Miko"=Agnico Eagle, "Amar Aljundi/Amarl Jindy/Jindy"=Ammar Al-Joundi, "Amber Canoir"=Amber Kanwar, "Bareric/Beric/barracks"=Barrick, "Kamico"=Cameco, "Tech Resources"=Teck Resources, "none of it/Nunovit/Nunovet/Nunovid"=Nunavut, "Abbot Tibby/Abatibi/Abot Tibby/Abbott Tibby/the TV"=Abitibi, "Malardic"=Canadian Malartic, "Yuma"=Yamana, "Monk"=Munk, "Bruce Haymon"=Bruce Heyman, "Shawn Boyd"=Sean Boyd, "Steven Harper"=Stephen Harper. "San Nicholas with uh Anglo Gold Tech" rendered "San Nicolás with Teck" (the San Nicolás copper-zinc project in Mexico is the Agnico Eagle / Teck 50:50 JV; the "Anglo Gold" fragment is an auto-caption garble). The new critical-minerals subsidiary is heard as "Aanir" — spelling UNCERTAIN, kept as heard.

(00:03) We employ many thousands of Canadians. We could not get anybody from the previous government to ever come up to a mine opening. So imagine the sea change. >> The CEO of one of the biggest mining companies on the planet joins us fresh off the Canada Investment Summit. Did any of this make Agnico Eagle more inclined to invest more? >> Yeah, it really does.
(00:23) >> We've got Ammar Al-Joundi. The CEO of Agnico Eagle is talking about Canada's moment and the future of the second largest gold producer in the world. >> My job is to make you money. My job is not to get bigger. >> Prime Minister Carney revealed that they're going to move one project, one review, one year.
(00:39) Is that a game changer for a company like Agnico? Do you ever think we'll see the Bank of Canada buy gold again? >> Yeah, I do actually. >> What do you attribute that to? that outperformance the secret sauce of Agnico Eagle. [Sponsor read — ATB Financial]
(01:06) [Sponsor read — ATB Cormark Capital Markets; show disclaimer: informational purposes only, not financial advice]
(01:26) [Show disclaimer: views are the host's and guest's own; the host and guest may maintain positions in any securities discussed; consult a qualified adviser]
(01:42) Hey everyone, welcome to a special episode of In the Money with Amber Kanwar. We are fresh off the Canada Investment Summit. I was one of two journalists that was allowed basically all access at the summit, which was the who's who of the TSX60 and global investors. I'm talking $120 trillion packed into one room to hear about why this is Canada's moment.
(02:06) The prime minister announced a number of changes, including a mega tax deduction on certain investments, as well as shortening the review time for all projects, not just the major projects. It was the kind of announcements that really shocked the room. I would say that the tone from investors was tentatively very excited.
(02:29) Everybody's giddy about our natural resources and now our ability to finally get them out the ground and moving. I sat on a panel with the CEO of Cameco, the CEO of Teck Resources, and the CEO of Agnico Eagle to really tackle the critical minerals piece, which is a key part of the Canada Strong agenda. In this episode, we have an extended conversation with the CEO of Agnico Eagle, Ammar Al-Joundi, who says this moment is very real.
(03:02) He'll tell us in the podcast he plans on spending more in this country, and he'll tell us a little bit more about why this gold producer is very interested in critical minerals. Let's get into it. [Sponsor read — Raymond James]
(03:25) [Sponsor read — Raymond James, continued]
(03:45) [Sponsor read — Raymond James, continued] Ammar Al-Joundi, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
(04:07) It's my pleasure, Amber, to be here. >> Now, I had the pleasure of sharing the stage with you just yesterday at the Canada Investment Summit, which was absolutely historic. $120 trillion in one room and everybody looking at Canada. What did that summit, that moment feel like for you? I felt like a proud Canadian to have all of those investors around the world listening to our story.
(04:36) I was also as a business person very impressed with the prime minister and his team to set up something like this. To my knowledge it's the first time it's been done and I think it's a reflection that this government that we have is business-oriented and knows how to get things done or at least get things started.
(04:58) And I think just given everything that's going on right now geopolitically, one of the things that kept coming up about what Canada has, yeah, obviously natural resources but we were basically selling, you know, trust, >> correct? >> as well. And as a miner with predominantly Canadian assets, I'm curious what that looks like for you.
(05:19) Like how often is things like jurisdiction coming up in your investor conversations? Well, it's an excellent question and if you'll bear with me, I'm going to give you a bit of a long answer because >> that's what the podcast is for. Go for it. >> Well, Agnico Eagle, we've been in business for 70 years and we've always, from day one, been focused on jurisdictional certainty.
(05:46) And the logic from the founder Paul Penna is that when you make a big investment in a business, if the government does something wrong, you can't move a mine. And so we've always focused on safe jurisdictions. That has always been our calling card for 70 years. And it always resulted, Amber, in Agnico having the lowest risk.
(06:10) And we always traded at a premium for that. What I have found accelerating in the last 5 years is the value of that differentiation. Our investors more than ever before, well before some of these trade issues happened and really actually started to accelerate after Russia invaded Ukraine. So remember, Russia invades Ukraine.
(06:37) 24 hours later, Russia's out of the Swift system and gas got cut off. And if it wasn't for that warm winter when they invaded, if you lived in Berlin, you were weeks away from being cold in your apartment, literally. And so people started to think about jurisdictional risk, supply chain risk in that context. And then as the gold price went up and some countries raised taxes and effectively started to quietly nationalize assets, a lot of our investors in the mining space and in particular in the gold space were paying
(07:13) us an even higher premium for operating in safe jurisdictions. So a long answer to a 70-year history of Agnico Eagle. And I tell you from my perspective, Amber, I see this evolving and accelerating. >> You know, nobody mentioned Prime Minister Justin Trudeau by name yesterday, but I feel like his nickname could basically be the last 10 years, right? Everybody referenced the last 10 years.
(07:46) And you yourself on stage acknowledged that even with being in Canada, it hasn't been an easy go. How would you characterize what today feels like in contrast to the last 10 years? >> Well, certainly we've seen a remarkable increased enthusiasm in my view for promoting economic development. The truth is not all economic development is things that somebody might look at with rose-colored glasses.
(08:27) There's nothing wrong with resource development. This country was built on resource development. We should all be very proud of that. And we've transitioned from resource development to technology, and from that we have I think the most educated population in the world. We have higher standards of social justice than most.
(08:50) But the roots of the country were resource development and there's nothing wrong with it. I think the current government promotes economic development across the entire spectrum of opportunities including resource development and we see immediate action from this government frankly on all fronts including the businesses that we're in.
(09:12) >> You shared an anecdote I wonder if you could retell it for our audience here about, you know, kind of crystallize that sea change. Well, it really is a sea change and I'll share it and thank you Amber for bringing that up. So, I've been in this business for 30 years and while we are the biggest miner in Canada and we're the largest private employer in Nunavut and we're investing billions of dollars into the country and we employ many thousands of Canadians proudly, good paying jobs,
(09:49) we could not get anybody from the previous government ever to come up to a mine opening. These are billion-dollar investments, multi-billion dollar investments. And again, it seemed like there really wasn't a lot of support for resource development. And talk about sea change. On the Sunday after Carney came in, I got a text on the Sunday morning on my mobile phone from a gentleman named Tim Hodgson.
(10:20) Now, I had never heard of Tim Hodgson. He introduced himself as the new federal minister of energy and natural resources. So imagine the sea change where in the previous 10 years we couldn't get anybody to come up to a multi-billion dollar announcement of an investment in Canada and Nunavut where with the change of government on the Sunday morning after the change the federal minister reaches out and introduces himself, somehow found my number, contacted me, introduced himself and said how can I help, and Minister Hodgson has helped since
(10:58) he's been in power. He joined us about a month ago as we flew up to Nunavut to announce a $2.5 billion dollar investment in Canada's furthest north. That is a huge investment in Nunavut and he was there. And so that is an example really of how this government I think has changed.
(11:22) It's also an example of intersectionality when you mention, you know, driving all these different economic factors. Part of what the government is trying to grow in this country is a defense industry which quite frankly has been pretty anemic and that agenda happened to intersect with the Nunavut, the revival of Hope Bay, and maybe help us understand how because you might not think okay you got gold miner, department of defense, what are you two doing collaborating? Well, I think regardless of what you might think of certain
(11:59) circumstances, I think most of us would acknowledge that a lot of the members of NATO, we probably weren't really pulling our weight. And so a lot of countries are now looking to spend more on defense and do a little bit more on defense, it's a function of world events. What's interesting again it's the connectivity of the government now. At Agnico Eagle we've built four mines in Nunavut in the last 20 years. We are very good at logistics, we're very good at construction at minus 50°
(12:40) temperature, we're very good at the local energy infrastructure etc. And what's interesting is we've been talking to the Department of National Defence quite regularly on sharing knowledge. Now any army in the world, you can imagine, has to be experts in logistics.
(13:01) You have to be. But what I found impressive is they reached out to us and said look, we've observed you've now built all of this infrastructure in the last 20 years. You seem to be good at it. And even though they're experts they reached out and said can we learn something from you? And so what we've talked to them about, we have an MOU to share experiences and we've offered and I think they're taking up to send a few of their soldiers and experts and officers to be on our construction team just to
(13:33) learn how we're doing things, and we're learning from them. The other thing, Amber, is when you look at resources that might be available in times of difficulty, this mine that we're building at the top of Nunavut on the north, literally on the Northwest Passage, we have an airstrip, we have diesel storage, we have a camp, it's going to have a camp for about 800 people, we have satellite communication, we have a lot of infrastructure in a very strategic spot that
(14:06) naturally the Department of Defence would be interested to know about. >> So, collaboration between defense and potential acceleration of project timelines, that was another kind of jaw-dropping moment that Prime Minister Carney revealed that they're going to move at a federal level, one project, one review, one year.
(14:25) And you and I, we were in the green room when he said that. And I was like, what did he say? Did he say that? That's certainly what they're trying to do with major projects, now saying every single project. How surprising was that to you and is that a game changer for a company like Agnico? >> Well, it's another excellent step in the right direction and it very well could be a game changer.
(14:49) I want to clarify one thing. When the prime minister said a one-year review, just so the audience understands, this isn't one year from I want to look at this to I want to build this. It's a one-year review of the applications we submit. So as a company, Amber, typically we'll already have spent three or four years with global experts both internal and external assessing environmental risk, environmental mitigation plans, doing our work, and we will submit a plan that is 10,000 pages long. And we're not
(15:30) taking shortcuts and the prime minister wasn't suggesting that. What the prime minister talked about is how long the government will spend to review our work. So I just want everybody to know that the work continues. It goes on. We're going to do a gold level quality, you know, excuse the pun. But it's the government says once you've done all that work, >> they'll only take a year to review.
(15:55) >> They'll only take a year to review. >> This is what's been your experience in the past. >> It depends on the project, but it could have been three, four, five years. So, this is a really important commitment. >> The big question that kept coming out of the conference and I'm curious about your sidebar chats is this is great, but will it work? You know, we got to show up in a year as a country and have something to show for this.
(16:22) Did any of this, and I know it's just day one that we're removed from it, but did any of this make Agnico Eagle more inclined to spend more, to invest more in Canada? >> Yes. Yeah, it really does. I mean the summit was another step in several steps that have given us that confidence.
(16:47) We are spending more. We have actually seen the government help us resolve some issues. This investment, when I say two and a half billion by the way that's in US dollars, in Hope Bay in an area that is economically depressed, that investment decision would not have happened in the same time frame were it not for this new government, I can tell you that, and I mean that in a good way.
(17:18) The other thing is he announced something else which was an accelerated deduction in capital investment. So to be sure, we might be at Agnico Eagle, because of the current gold price and the successful business we're in, we're going to be one of the top taxpayers in Canada. I mean, one of the top five taxpayers in Canada probably.
(17:45) But the prime minister announced an ability to depreciate capital investment. You want people to invest capital. This is what the whole point is. And so, he's saying if you invest capital in Canada, you're going to be able to depreciate that quickly and get a better return on your investment. As nice as Canada is, as friendly as the people are, foreign investors, they take that into account.
(18:16) They take into account trust, but of course they take into account economic return. And I think a very targeted move like that, which effectively says if you invest capital, we're going to encourage that, I think that's a very good thing. >> I don't want to gloss over any criticisms that maybe still remain in the country, and as an operator, as one of the biggest taxpayers in this country, is there a lot more that needs to be done? You know, I heard the former ambassador to Canada Bruce Heyman from the USA: all of this,
(18:54) we're just at base camp, we still have to do the climb. >> Well, we do. I mean you can't turn an aircraft carrier on a dime. There's a lot of administrative that goes into this, a lot of bureaucracy. I don't mean that in a negative way. I mean bureaucracy.
(19:16) We are a big nation. There's a lot of negotiations that need to continue to happen. We do not want to ever cut back on environmental responsibility. We just don't. And so there are things that are naturally going to take time and Canada does tend to try to do things to a very high standard.
(19:43) At Agnico Eagle we have the same environmental standards in Mexico, in Australia, in Finland and frankly anywhere we operate that we would have in Ontario or Quebec or Nunavut or Western Canada or Eastern Canada. So Canada is still probably going to have higher environmental standards than most. >> Good. Is one year too early to see the benefits of this? >> No, I think that's an excellent question.
(20:13) A lot of what drives investment is trust. You made this point just earlier. People always trusted Canada. They are now trusting that we have a more constructive environment for investment. >> Well, and that has been to the benefit of Agnico Eagle. And I want to talk a little bit about the company cuz if you look at a chart, [Sponsor read — Wealthsimple Trade, chart sponsor]
(20:43) [Sponsor read — Wealthsimple Trade, continued] I'm not sure how often you check on Agnico Eagle's stock price, but if you look at it over the long term, Agnico Eagle has done extraordinarily well.
(21:05) It's up some 350% over the past 5 years. It's outperformed peers. It's done much better than the price of gold. >> And I kind of joke on this show that you don't get fired for recommending people buy Agnico Eagle. What do you attribute that outperformance to, the secret sauce of Agnico Eagle? If you were talking to prospective investors or current investors, what is the secret sauce that makes Agnico Eagle that standout performer? >> I think there are two things.
(21:37) The first one is obvious. The second one should be obvious. It's obvious to old people like me but not young people like you maybe. The first obvious part of the secret sauce is strategy. We have a good strategy, Amber. I'm happy to go into that and what differentiates our strategy.
(21:56) The second element, and I actually meant it sincerely when I said it matters to people who've been around a lot, it is culture. You know, when I was 22 years old and hungry to prove myself, culture was important, but it was almost a nice to have. I'm now 62 and I can tell you that the continued success of this company over seven decades is largely a function of culture and that is >> which is what, how would you define it? >> It's our previous chairman Jim Nasso called it the culture
(22:32) of the heart. I know that sounds corny, but when we talk about our fundamental values, trust, respect, equality, family and responsibility, we take all of those things very seriously and when you're in business and you're working with people and you have 100 people in company A and 100 people in company B, they're equally smart, equally ambitious, equally hard
(23:03) working. But if the people in company A like each other, trust each other, communicate with each other, they will always outperform the people in company B. They just will. So this culture of the heart also goes to the communities we're in. We've been in the Abitibi for 70 years.
(23:26) We've built a dozen mines. We're still welcome in that community. That says something. We have one-third the turnover rate of our peers in that community. We are the employer of choice in our business. You can't just be accepted in the community. You have to be welcome in the community and if you're not you're out of business.
(23:48) So the culture we have, that started with our founder Paul Penna, that Sean Boyd who really built this company really exemplified and still does, both as a boss and a human being, it is a very important part of who we are. Now the strategy we have is also a little bit different than our peers.
(24:12) Our strategy, Amber, is more regionally oriented rather than globally oriented. And we'll go anywhere in the world to build a mine, but we'll only go to regions that have the geologic potential for multiple mines over multiple decades and have the political stability for multiple mines over multiple decades. So getting right back to operating in safe jurisdictions, and I think, Amber, what that has allowed us to do, and it's demonstrable by our performance over 70 years,
(24:42) and we have had good performance over 70 years, not just the last five years. Let's look at the Abitibi where we've been for 70 years. We know every junior company. We know all the suppliers. We know all the contractors. We are the employer of choice. One, because we're good people, and two, we've been the number one employer for 70 years.
(25:06) [Sponsor read — Hamilton ETFs]
(25:31) [Sponsor read — Hamilton ETFs, continued]
(25:56) And Agnico is not the only company you've been at. There was a time where you were kind of ping-ponging between Barrick and Agnico and maybe you can tell us, culturally is there a huge difference between the two companies? Certainly in terms of assets there turned out to be. I mean Barrick's almost completely walked away from Canada.
(26:22) >> Yeah. Well, I really enjoyed my time at Barrick. It was a fun part of my career. >> Was that the Munk era? >> Peter Munk I have great respect for. He was a smart guy. He's a philanthropist. He always treated people very well.
(26:45) Barrick's approach is more the global mining: we're going to go anywhere in the world to build a mine. And honestly, there's nothing wrong with that, Amber. It's just a different strategy than we have. I know the people at Barrick, they're still friends of mine. They are responsible good miners as well.
(27:04) >> You were there during kind of a period of maybe excess and reckoning. You know, the chief complaint in mining way back when was that when the times were good you just grew at any cost, you spent, you overlevered and then prices collapsed and it was very painful. In this rally what a lot of investors talk about is discipline. >> Correct, yeah. >> You still remember what it was like during those difficult periods because you were there and had a front row seat to both the excess and the pain from
(27:40) that excess. I'm curious what that era imprinted onto you. >> Well, I think, and this isn't attributable to any particular company, this is attributable to 30 years in the resource space in a volatile industry like gold. You learn a bunch of things in business school, right? They talk about the lowest cost of capital and how you want to leverage with debt etc etc. In the resource space you learn a few things over time. One is have a
(28:21) strong balance sheet, because even if your business is good, if the price of the commodity goes down and stays down, not because of your fault, it's liquidity that kills you, not the underlying business. So we don't have any net debt. We have about $3 billion of net cash.
(28:41) Actually, you also learn that sometimes it's good to stage projects. If you're going to invest $5 billion, maybe what you want to do is stage it, get your money back, spend more, get your money back. In other words, even though over time it might end up costing you a little bit more, >> Amber, you've reduced the risk materially.
(29:06) You learn to, when COVID happened, what really hurt wasn't the increase in the cost of steel. It's what if you couldn't get the steel. So, we always got the steel. Why? Because we've been their best customer for 70 years. So, you learn things like that. So, it's not so much an Agnico thing.
(29:28) It's you're in a cyclical business. And frankly, you should run a cyclical business different than running a utility. >> Where are we in this cyclical business for gold? Obviously, you mentioned the Russia Ukraine period which really did light a fire under gold ownership. Since the war in Iran began,
(29:50) maybe counterintuitively, you've actually seen gold prices hold back >> and some have attributed that to maybe some central banks selling a little bit. I'm curious what your thoughts are. Why the war in Iran was a catalyst for selling and why under an inflationary environment, a high interest rate environment, gold isn't performing.
(30:11) >> Again, very good question. So let's address the Iran situation. I mean, we see it front line and you hit the nail on the head with this issue on inflation and interest rates. In the long run, uncontrolled inflation is very constructive for gold. In the short run it isn't, because what happens when you have expected inflation is a rise in interest rates.
(30:38) And when interest rates go up significantly, the view is to sell gold because the simple answer, the simple logic is if I can invest in US dollars or in gold, gold doesn't pay me an interest rate, but if I can get five or 6% on my dollars, I'm going to shift from gold back into dollars. It really is as simple as that.
(30:58) So there is a knee-jerk market reaction in the short term that if there's a view interest rates are going to go up, gold goes down. The war starts in Iran, oil prices go up, everybody says that's inflationary. That's what's driving it. It's as simple as that. But in the long run, and even in the short run, I'm very constructive on gold.
(31:22) Look, I don't know where it's going to be next week or next month, but I am constructive on gold, both near-term and long-term. I, as the CEO of a gold company and been in this business for 30 years, I don't consider myself a gold bug as much as I do a hard asset bug. >> And everybody knows the story. Governments are printing money like crazy.
(31:48) And when there's more money in an economy than there is the ability for that economy to absorb it, hard assets go up. People will tell you inflation in the last 20 years has been 2%. Try buying a house, try buying stock, try buying gold. And right now, I'll look at the US and I'm going to say some numbers people know and some they may not. And I'm not picking on the US.
(32:12) It's just that their data is out there. >> Mhm. So, everybody knows about the $41 trillion debt. But let me put that into perspective because that's kind of a giant number. $41 trillion works out to about $360,000 of obligation for every taxpayer in the United States. >> Wow. >> Works out to almost $500,000 for every taxpaying family in the United States.
(32:39) There's no way on God's green earth the average taxpaying family in the United States can afford to pay that $500,000. So you've got four choices as a government. You can raise taxes. There's no way you can raise taxes that much. >> You can cut spending. There's no way you can cut spending that much.
(33:00) >> You can default. That's not good. That's destructive of society. People lose their savings. That's not going to happen. Or you can do what everybody has always done. You devalue the obligation. I know that sounds fancy, but it basically says that if there's an old guy like me that has a million dollars in government bonds, a young person like you should pay that in future dollars that are worth a lot less than a million.
(33:28) I'll still get a million. >> Inflate your way out of it. >> Correct. I'll still get my million dollars, >> but your salary will go up from 100,000 say to 200,000. Do you see what I mean? >> Yeah. >> And in that environment, hard assets go up. And gold is a currency. Whether governments like it or not, gold is a currency. And Russia's invasion of Ukraine has helped support that.
(33:56) It's moved heavily towards becoming a currency again. >> Do you ever think we'll see the Bank of Canada buy gold again? >> Probably. Yeah, I do actually. I mean to the extent you want fiscal reserves, >> right? At the end of the day, you have money to support, you know, maybe you should have energy reserves, maybe you should have food reserves, but you have money reserves.
(34:22) Who would have thought that? I mean, the dollar has been the reserve choice for decades, and it should have been. It's fungible and there's never been really restrictions on it, especially if you're Canada. But, you know, we've had a deal for 100 years on autos and they're being thrown out the window.
(34:44) So, I think to the extent that the Bank of Canada decides it needs some money in reserves, I'll say this, I hope I don't offend anybody, it would be foolish to have 100% of those reserves in just US dollars. And gold is very, very fungible and not easily restricted by, you know, one guy.
(35:06) >> Yeah. Well and we've seen other central banks make that decision as well. One of the other factors to consider in an inflationary environment is that you're not immune to it either. Correct. And maybe it matters slightly less now that gold prices are 4,300 an ounce and not 2,000 like they were a couple of years ago.
(35:30) So moving from 5,000 to 4,300 isn't a crisis. But what have you been seeing on the cost side of the business with oil, energy prices going up and with supply chains? You mentioned your ability to get steel, like it must be more expensive now. >> It is and let's be perfectly honest. All businesses including the mining business, including the gold business and including our business,
(35:54) we deal with increasing costs. Our biggest cost, 40% of our cost is labor and labor doesn't go down. It only goes down if you're able to automate and we can talk about that in a little bit. About 20% of our costs are energy. >> So we have sensitivity. Now we are the lowest cost of our peers by quite a bit. >> Put a number around that.
(36:18) What's your all-in sustaining? >> Our all-in sustaining cost is probably about $400 to $500 an ounce below our peers. So, it's not insignificant. >> Yeah. >> Now, we have had some advantages relative to our peers and bear with me if you would. So, let's take a look at labor at 40%.
(36:39) We have somewhere between a third and half the turnover rate of our peers. What's the most expensive thing with labor? It's if you hire somebody, you train them, 6 months later they leave, you got to do it again. So, we have a structural advantage relative to our peers in labor because we go into regions and we stay there for decades and we have very low turnover.
(37:06) The other thing we talked about is energy. Well, we actually have a slight structural advantage there as well for two reasons. One is we have both open pit and underground but we have a proportionately higher percentage of underground mines which use a lot less energy than open pit mines.
(37:27) The other structural advantage we have, Amber, is most of our operations are in regions where, so energy is in two things, electricity and diesel, diesel mostly for mobile equipment. Most of our electricity, well, virtually all of our electricity in Quebec, in Ontario, in Finland is either hydro or nuclear and virtually none of that is susceptible to diesel from the electricity side, where a lot of our peers have to generate a lot more of their electricity and have to buy electricity off a grid that is dependent on either natural gas or diesel. So, we
(38:06) have some structural advantages there. And then finally, and this is the point again on the steel, a rise in price of 10% is not a good thing. If you don't get the steel, it's very expensive because your fixed costs are still there. The way to control costs is to have your trucks operating at 90% utilization, to have your mill running at 95% utilization.
(38:36) And when you don't get even one of the things you need, everything shuts down. And we have an advantage there as well because of our size and the history where we work. [Sponsor read — EQB / EQ Bank]
(38:59) [Sponsor read — EQB / EQ Bank, continued]
(39:20) [Sponsor read — EQB / EQ Bank, continued]
(39:39) The costs are going up though at a time where Agnico is being described as you're in a growth phase. You're spending on projects. Yes. >> Help us understand what that growth phase looks like and what you'll get out of it, like walk us through the next 5 to seven years.
(39:59) What does production growth look like? >> Sure. So let's talk about what my job is. My job is to make you money. My job is not to get bigger. So how do I make you money? You invest in shares. So by definition I have to make you money per share. So everything we look at is on a per share basis. And we always start with that.
(40:23) We never talk about, I mean we've increased absolute production I think in the last 20 years by a factor of I think 14 or something like a big number. You don't care about that. >> Can you do that again? >> Well what we are continuing to do is make you money per share.
(40:45) What you care about is what have you done per share? And we're the only guys who talk about that. In those last 20 years, we've increased production per share by a factor of three. That's hard to do. Basically anybody can issue more shares and get bigger. What's hard is to not issue shares and get bigger. And we've done that.
(41:05) And we've done that far better than our peers. And what I will say, Amber, we've said publicly over the next, early to mid 30s, we're going to continue to increase production by about 20 to 30%. And at these levels, we're doing all that with self-funding, and at these levels, we're actually buying back shares at the same time.
(41:31) So, yes, it's good that we've increased production per share for the last 20 years. It does get harder when you're producing 3 plus million ounces than when you're producing 300,000 ounces. But just the projects we're building right now are going to increase production by 20 to 30%. >> Which brings me to M&A. I think Agnico has always had a preference for growing internally, growing your own assets, but you have done some deals.
(41:57) You've done some very large deals and as I mentioned, there has been a slight pullback in your sector and I'm curious if that creates more attractive conditions for you to go out shopping. Well, again our job is to make you money per share and honestly it's hard to do that with acquisitions and that's why we've done only very few and very selectively and the acquisitions that we've done have levered off, I would say, our strengths.
(42:31) We acquired the Canadian assets of Yamana. We knew those assets well. Malartic is going to be one of the few million ounce producers in the world. We merged with Kirkland Lake. They were our brother company, similar strategy, similar region. We consolidated Detour, that'll be another million ounce producer.
(42:56) By the way, in the entire world there's only maybe three mines producing a million ounces a year. We'll end up having two of five >> in Canada? No, >> in the world. >> In the world. No, but those mines are >> those are in Canada. Those mines are in Canada. Yeah. One in Ontario, one in Quebec. >> And I mentioned, I mean you're very exposed to Canada, but you said you're a regional producer.
(43:16) >> You're not very exposed to Nevada, no exposure to Australia. >> We have some, >> a little bit of exposure, and a little bit of exposure in Mexico. And those are hot, stable mining jurisdictions. >> And Northern Europe. >> And Northern Europe. Do you think about expanding in any of those? Is there regionally a place you feel too under-represented? >> All of those we like.
(43:42) I think, I've said this publicly, I think if your strategy says I want to go to regions that have multi-generation opportunity of resources in the ground and have the political stability to let you operate for decades, probably the three best regions are Nevada, and Newmont and Barrick have done a pretty good job in Nevada, Australia, and in particular Western Australia, and we're in Australia, and we like Australia.
(44:11) And don't everybody think we're going to go buy something in Australia. I'm just making a comment. But the best region is the Abitibi. It's produced the most in the last 50 years. It's been around the longest. Between those two mines, Malartic and Detour, we've added in all categories somewhere in the neighborhood of 40 million ounces.
(44:35) I mean, it is a fantastic place to be. Now Nunavut's good. Northern Europe's good. Mexico is good. We like where we are and there are other regions we'd like as well. >> Abitibi, I want to spend a beat on that. 70 years you've been operating there, and still a lot of growth ahead. Yep. >> Now, how do you think about how Abitibi is either overvalued or undervalued relative to real time pricing that we're getting >> in Nevada? We've had guests come on who say, look at how Nevada is priced and I don't know that that's
(45:09) necessarily being reflected in Abitibi when maybe it's comparable or better. >> Well, look, somebody might disagree with me. I think Abitibi is the best place to be in the world for mining, period. Certainly for gold. Probably followed maybe by Western Australia.
(45:34) And the proof is in the pudding. Look where all the money's going. I mean the Abitibi has had far more investment maybe than the other two combined in the last >> Still undervalued? Do you think underappreciated? >> It's a hard one. One of the issues is we're starting to have a human capacity constraint.
(45:58) I think we're getting to the point where the challenge isn't going to be continuing to find good ore bodies. It's can you get the people? So for anybody who's listening in who's looking for a good job in a nice community, take a look at the Abitibi. >> Okay. That's in Quebec and Ontario.
(46:18) >> Good restaurants. >> It's a great place to be. Probably better restaurants on the Quebec side. I hope I don't offend anybody. >> We've talked a lot about you as a gold producer, but talk to me about what you're doing with critical minerals. In fact, that was the panel that we were on, >> Agnico was on the critical minerals panel.
(46:39) How serious are you about growing that? Is it primarily copper? How does it fit into Agnico Eagle, the gold producer? Well, we like copper, but copper and gold sometimes go together. So, Agnico, I mean, we're building San Nicolás with Teck. So, the copper side of it as a critical metal will probably stay within Agnico Eagle.
(47:05) Pretty much everything else will go into this new company that we've started called Aanir [spelling uncertain]. And we set it up as a separate company. It's 100% subsidiary right now, but we are going to take it to a point where we're going to bring in other investors and likely then just distribute it to our owners, our shareholders.
(47:23) Nothing fancy, just >> spin it out. >> Spin it out. I mean, it's their asset. >> We think there is tremendous opportunity in Canada for critical metals. We have the resources. And full circle to where this started about your comment on the summit yesterday. If you don't have some of those metals, your industry shuts down, your weapons systems shut down, your electricity transmission and generation shuts down.
(47:55) And in things like phosphate or potash, your food system becomes vulnerable after a while. So critical metals really are critical because if you don't have them, you're in trouble. And where the world for the last 30 years has been one open happy family and you can get whatever you want from the lowest cost supplier anywhere in the world,
(48:24) that's not so easy, right? The United States went to put tariffs on China and mysteriously China the next day said oh by the way all these rare earth metals you need, you might not get them. Well, suddenly the negotiations changed, right? So, there is a need for critical metals, but equally strong there's a need for the supply of critical metals that you can trust over the long run.
(48:54) And honestly, I think that, and I'm talking our own book and as a proud Canadian, but Canada has the metals. We have the expertise to produce it. We have a political environment to support us in producing it. And we certainly have the trust, I think, that if you do a deal with Canada, we're not going to change the rules on you in 5 years.
(49:18) >> And the financing is a key part of that as well. I know that you're on the board of CIBC and a number of banks have stepped up for the financing that is required to get some of these projects moving. Pulling the lens out, you're on the board of CIBC, you're a C-suite executive, just help us tie it all together.
(49:43) The level of enthusiasm or even trepidation maybe that's still out there among your peers based on what the country has gone through in the last couple of months, because even though there's a high post-summit, let's not sugarcoat it. I mean, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said this is going to be difficult. Untethering from the US is going to be hard.
(50:04) >> Well, I will say only a little bit about the non-Agnico part of my business experience. But I will tell you that at CIBC and I'm sure at the other banks we view our role as important to Canadian society. The Canadian banks have supported Canada for hundreds of years.
(50:39) They are the leaders, and the board and the employees, they're good people. And they take a very serious part of their job to support Canadians and the Canadian economy. And it is going to be tough depending on what's thrown at us. But I think we're all as Canadians determined, and speaking for CIBC, and I couldn't speak for the other banks, but I'm sure they're all the same.
(51:14) The Canadian banks are there to support Canadians. >> All right. Well, before we let you go, thank you for that insight. We like to end our shows [Sponsor mention — the closing bell segment, Haliburton Post House] by asking our guests, what do you like to do for fun? We've asked so many serious questions, but what do you like to do to unwind? And I'm sure you have very little time to do that, but what are you doing when you are? >> I have a hobby farm just outside the city.
(51:45) >> What do you grow? >> Well, it depends on the season. Everything's grown. But if I'm perfectly honest, I'm more of a tinkerer. I just get out there and cut the lawn and trim branches and >> you know, it's a nice change of pace from the day-to-day job. >> Different vibe from an open pit mine, I imagine.
(52:05) Thank you very much, Ammar Al-Joundi, joining us, the CEO of Agnico Eagle. [Sponsor read — Haliburton Post House]
(52:28) [Sponsor read — Haliburton Post House, continued]
(52:50) [Sponsor read — Haliburton Post House, continued] Don't miss our next episode. We are going back to stock picking. We've got Ryan Bushell on the show talking Canadian dividend stocks. We'll see you then.