Lance Glinn:

Welcome into another episode of the Inside the ICE House podcast. Today's guest is Gerard Bond. He is the president and CEO of OceanaGold. Gerard, thanks so much for joining us Inside the ICE House. Happy to have you here.

Gerard Bond:

Likewise, Lance. Great to be on the program.

Lance Glinn:

So, I want to start obviously with a big milestone for the company, the decision to list on the New York Stock Exchange. Just from a corporate perspective for OceanaGold, let's start there. Just what does this moment represent? What does it really mean for the company and for the company's journey?

Gerard Bond:

Look, it's a key milestone. I mean, the US is the world's largest, deepest capital market, and we have grown our market value over the last four years from 1.5 billion US dollars four years ago to $7 billion now. And it felt like it was time for us to be on a platform, a market that US investors can directly invest in OceanaGold. And given that the company's asset base, we are a global company, but 45% of the production comes out of the hail gold mine there in South Carolina, which is a really unique calling card for a gold company. A lot of our peers are on the New York Stock Exchange, and they get the benefit of more demand with this wider investor universe, and higher trading liquidity. So we thought it was time for us to be on the exchange.

Lance Glinn:

We talked a lot about what it means for having this new investor base. So for those that are going to put their time and their research into learning what OceanaGold is all about, what do you want them to understand about who the company is, what the company has built already, and what you guys are going to build in the future?

Gerard Bond:

Right. Well, we're a four operating asset company. So we're diversified. We're in three different countries. Our largest producer is the hail gold mine in South Carolina, as I think I've said. And we had a banner 2025 where we hit a number of production and financial records. We generated record revenue, record profit, record earnings per share, record free cash flow that allowed us to generate $540 million of free cash flow. We have $477 million of cash in the bank, so we're debt free. All of the assets of the company are owned by our shareholders. And we have growth. And a lot of gold companies are doing well, but no one has the growth profile, or very few companies have the growth profile that we have for a company of our size. In 2026, our gold production will be 12% higher. Our all in sustaining cost is going to be 7% lower, and the gold prices today are 30% higher than what they were last year when we had our records.

So again, we have to deliver on our production expectations, but if we do so, and now costs are expected to fall, we'll make even more money than we did previously. And so that's a really good message for shareholders to be participating in. And that growth was largely funded by work that we did last year, accessing open pits, developing underground mines. And so the shareholder that joins us via the New York Stock Exchange today is getting organic growth that's been largely derisked.

Lance Glinn:

And so you talk about the Banner 2025, obviously 2026, as we sit here today, OceanaGold's origins do trace back decades before all the way to 1990 with that first production in New Zealand, a country that you guys still inhabit today. So, as the company has grown geographically and has modernized along with it and has had all this success, especially over the last four or five, six years, whatever it may be, how do you really stay true to the core principles that really built the company back in 1990? Because that's important, right? It's important to, sure, you want to continue to grow, you want to evolve as the world around you changes, but you can't forget the roots. You can't forget the origins.

Gerard Bond:

I couldn't agree more. I think we're very proud of our heritage. We have 40% of our production comes out of our two operations in New Zealand. It's also the source of our primary and largest growth investment there up near Waihi, which we'll talk about later, I hope. All of our sites have a unique character. And the Macraes Mine that you spoke of in 1990, which has been going continuously for 36 years, which in gold industry terms is a very senior gold producer. I mean, that team there is remarkably talented. This by having been in operation for 36 years, it's now very low grade, and they do a great job in dealing with refractory oil, which is a little more complicated to process than others. And they do a great job in getting industry leading returns off industry leading low mining costs, and they are a profitable producer.

All of our sites, and it's a unique thing for OceanaGold, all of our sites are residential. And what I think that fosters is a level of care for all of our employees-

Lance Glinn:

Can you describe what you mean by residential, for those who don't know?

Gerard Bond:

So, in mining, a residential site is where people will wake up from home, drive to work, and drive home, be with their family.

Lance Glinn:

So they're back home every day.

Gerard Bond:

Exactly.

Lance Glinn:

Got it.

Gerard Bond:

Whereas a lot of mines globally are fly in, fly out, or you're doing long time swings-

Lance Glinn:

So you're there for weeks at a time rather than-

Gerard Bond:

Weeks at a time, and go home-

Lance Glinn:

Sleep in bed, come back home. Got it.

Gerard Bond:

Yeah. So what all of our sites have offered is, and the genesis is at that Macraes Mine in New Zealand is care for that business. They care for that business, they care for each other. And that's because they all come from the same community. They also care for the environment with passion. So, one of the things that we focus on is safe and responsible gold mining. And if you are working alongside family or friends, and people you go to school with, or people that your kids go to soccer with, you just get a different mindset. And then I think that's a key feature of the culture of the company. And how do I link that back to New Zealand? The first time I went to New Zealand, and when I commenced this role a shade over four years ago, I remember going underground at the Waihi Mine, and the general manager there stopped one of the operators in the activity, and he started talking to him.

And for the first five to 10 minutes, all the general manager of the site did with this operator and the frontline mining gold was to talk about his family. And I remember saying afterwards to the general manager, "That's really impressive." I mean, that you knew about his family. He asked about his kids by name. He asked about how his other daughters are doing at school. I said, "That's really cool that you know that." And he said, "Well, this is the community we have. This is how we are in New Zealand." 30% of our workforce there in Waihi is Maori, or local, indigenous, and family to them is very important. So if you're not connecting with someone as a person, then they're not going to listen to you as you encourage them to work more safely or be more productive.

So, one of the distinct things about the culture of OceanaGold is this level of care for each other, care for community, care for environment.

Lance Glinn:

Yeah. It's that extra connection. It's not just a employee to employee relationship, right? It is a person to person relationship more. Like you said, these are the communities that these people live in. You would say that's sort of a benefit of being residential, rather than you said that fly in, spend two weeks, fly out type of thing, where you really get to know the person, that you're alongside working with on a pretty daily basis.

Gerard Bond:

On a total basis. And yeah, I mean, the people at our operations will talk about their colleagues being family, and it's a very special feature that we have.

Lance Glinn:

And I want to get a little personal just for a minute, because, and I'm sure you know this, right? Gold, copper mining, it's not something that a lot of people have a lot of interest in, or at least have a lot of interest in working in, I should say. How did you get your start? How did you decide this is an industry that I want to pursue, this is an industry that I want to work in and I want to rise up the ladder into ultimately leading a publicly traded company?

Gerard Bond:

Yeah. Well, I joined the resources industry, or the mining industry, 28 years ago. I commenced with Australia's largest company as it was then. It's still Australia's largest miner, that's BHP. It offered an Australian, as I am, an opportunity to travel the world. And particularly because it was a large company doing a lot of things, just to do things at a scale and a breadth that you couldn't do anywhere else for any other company in Australia. So, I love the complexity of the industry. Then I joined the gold industry about 14 years ago. Gold mining is, I think, amongst the most complex of the mining space. I mean, coal and iron ore, you dig it out of the ground, you crush it, you put it on a train and send it to port. In gold mining, we are getting grams per ton from rock that can be up to a kilometer deep in the ground to surface and then through a processed plant, and trying to recover through a chemical process at the most amount of gold, because this product sells for $4,600 now. So it really matters.

So, I get attracted to the complexity a lot. At a very personal level, if I go back to the first of my forefathers that came from England back in, I think it was 1854, he was part of the gold rush from the UK to Australia. And my grandfather's father... No, my grandfather was born at a gold mine.

Lance Glinn:

So gold's in your blood.

Gerard Bond:

Well, it just accidentally, it seems. But yeah, no, and I love history. I love financial history. And the history of Australia was catalyzed and the great cities of Australia, Melbourne, and Sydney were built off the riches of the gold boom in the 1950s.

Lance Glinn:

Yeah. And I'm sure we could do a full podcast on this. I'm sure we could spend 35 minutes just talking about this one question, but mining as a whole, takeaway just gold mining, mining as a whole, has evolved, just as every industry has. It's evolved, it's changed, the world around it has evolved, things have changed, technological advancements. If you could just sort of sum up what you've seen as sort of the greatest evolution of the industry, right? And you can even dive into gold mining if you want specifically too, but what have you seen as sort of the greatest evolution from when you started 28 years ago to now as we sit here in 2026 where the price of gold is what it is, OceanaGold is having the success that it is. How have you seen the industry as a whole evolve to allow OceanaGold to list here on the NYSC and be as successful as it has been?

Gerard Bond:

Yeah, I might split that answer into two parts. From an industry perspective, I think as a whole, the industry is passionate and committed authentically about mining safely and responsibly. I think because of the OceanaGold context of having all residential work sites where the people that come to work live in their communities, that's at an additional next level. But most jurisdictions which I've operated in, management is very keen to make sure people go home safely at the end of every day. So we don't want a dangerous work environment, and we are acutely conscious of the need to be good environmental stewards. And every miner that I've worked with has been passionate and committed authentically to doing it responsibility. I think that's one of the greatest transformations. And then because everywhere mining's become either deeper, lower grade, the science and the technology involved to get particularly gold out has just been this ever evolving and ever fine-tuning.

So you see ingenuity at work, but again, I think the thing that is particularly distinctive over my almost three decades is the authentic care for people and authentic care for environment. And the imperative to be a good member of the community.

Lance Glinn:

Has the industry sort of evolved from. Obviously the perception and when people think about mining, they think about workers in the mines with axes that you see in the movies. Has the industry evolved from maybe that longtime perception from old movies and history books to now more of a science, more of a tech type of industry, with all of the advancements that we've seen that now help mining happen?

Gerard Bond:

Very much so. And again, the thing that's distinctly at the polar opposite of the guy with the pick ax, we're working with cap land at the rock face where mining presents as dangerous to people in an underground mining context. We use remote boggers. There's some guy, it's usually a guy, or gal, working some controls on something that's remotely, which means that the only thing we're putting at risk is machinery. And that is about keeping people safe, keeping people out of harm's way, and making sure that we're not jeopardizing lives.

Lance Glinn:

I do want to discuss the Haile gold mine. We've obviously talked a lot about it. It's been mentioned quite often over the course of our conversation so far. Obviously in South Carolina, like I said earlier in my conversation, I didn't even know there was a site in South Carolina until I started doing my research. The fact that gold is being mined, really not that far from here where we sit in New York and where I am from in New Jersey. But when you just look at Haile on more of a broad perspective, how important is it to the portfolio? What role does it really play in shaping the company's North America growth strategy?

Gerard Bond:

Well, it's foundational, right? Haile we have owned, I think for 11 years. We acquired it in 2015, completed the project, build on it. There was a new mill and so forth. And it had its best year last year, but this year, it's our primary source of growth in production and earnings in 2026.

Lance Glinn:

Is that existing with America or globally?

Gerard Bond:

No, the Haile gold mine drives our global growth, but the Haile gold mine is going to produce 35% more gold this year at a 25% lower unit cost.

Lance Glinn:

Wow.

Gerard Bond:

And because it's already our largest producer, it becomes 45% of our gold production. We're developing a new underground mine there. Our technical report that we put out a month ago showed that we have another third underground mine to be developed there. So this was a series of open pits and progressively we were going to move this to be underground. That means we'll move less material. We'll need less surface works. We'll make more money. And as it's already the fourth largest gold mine. And with further exploration success, we can make this a meaningful producer for many years to come. And that's our goal. So, to your question, it's foundational.

Lance Glinn:

Yeah, very much so. What is, because you've obviously been in the industry for almost three decades, so as someone who hasn't been in the industry for almost three decades, what is that process? This is sort of like an inside baseball type of question, so to speak. What is that process? Because you said that it's going to be transitioned into an underground mine. What's that process? That must be scientific. We talked about science and tech earlier. Talk about science and tech. That has got to be just so much science, and so much technology, and so many moving parts to make that happen.

Gerard Bond:

Yeah. Well, I mean, the orebody dictates how you're going to mine it. And so for example, that third underground orebody, we were planning to do that as an open pit. And as we started to do the drilling, the shape of the oil body, and the density of the grade as it presented meant that it actually made more sense to access it from underground. We had to move a lot of waste to get to the ore if we went as an open pit. But by going underground, we can go straight for the oil, move less material. We will have a lower carbon footprint, there'll be less waste rehandle, less rehandle at surface and so forth. And so basically it's the orebody will dictate the mining, and then you only get to know what the oil body is by doing exploration. So, that's why this year we're spending more money on exploration than we've ever spent in the history of the company at all of our sites to better understand and define the orebody, because as it's typically the shape, and the grade, that will tell you how you're going to mine it.

And then when we do more drilling, we learn more about what's there. And that's how we've... At Haile, again, staying there, I think it was about just on 18 months, two years ago, the team changed the angles of the drilling of a target called Pisces. And so the oil body was shaped like this and they kept missing it as they were-

Lance Glinn:

Not a symbol, but it just changed the shape.

Gerard Bond:

And then all sudden this deposit lit up, which it just shows you've just got to keep trying. You're drilling from surface. There is risk involved, but we now have the financial wherewithal to take those risks.

Lance Glinn:

See, that's what I was telling you earlier, right? I learned something new in all these different podcasts I do- and that's one of the real things I appreciate about my job, is that I didn't go into our conversation today expecting to talk about shapes and angles of drilling, but here we are talking about shapes and angles of drilling. And you're learning something new. And that's sort of the beauty of the podcast. That's the beauty of the long form, I think, of what we do. And staying on the topic of Haile, you talked a little bit about the long-term potential of it. But what do you see as its role of really being a cornerstone asset for you guys in the US? You said it's foundational to not just the North American growth strategy, but the global growth strategy of what OceanaGold is doing, but what do you see as its real long-term ability and its real long-term potential?

Gerard Bond:

Well, I mean, again, the orebody's going to dictate that. We've got a fly path out to 2037, that's in our technical report. Obviously, if we keep drilling and we can add more ounces, that will extend its life. But it's been a proof point of how good leadership and good culture can combine to get more out of an existing asset than has been done before. If I look at the performance improvement that's been executed over recent years in relation to the underground mine, and then the open pit, and now the process plan, I think what we're believing and what we're building there is a belief system that is giving people there the confidence that they can face challenges and overcome them. And gold mining is complex. And so you do need that belief system. Confidence comes from past success, I think Andre Agassi said that. It's one of my favorite sayings. So when you have a challenging period, and Haile has had some challenging periods that the team have now overcome, and now it's a super profitable business, that gives us people and a belief system that you can replicate.

So, as we think about growth, and we talk about growth outside of our existing four assets, we target the USA, Canada, Australia, as well as Philippines and New Zealand, as areas of growth for us. And if you've got people that have been through that process of unlocking value out of an existing business, that gives us, again, people who can go do that in other operations if we were to add those to our portfolio.

Lance Glinn:

And speaking further on growth, I want to bring up the Waihi North Project in New Zealand. Just blatantly, why does it matter? What does it unlock? Sort of just take us through to start just the strategic rationale behind the project.

Gerard Bond:

Look, the Waihi district, Waihi is about two hours southeast of Auckland, which is the capital of New Zealand. It's on the North Island. And like Haile, there's been mining there for 150 plus years. And the Waihi operation that we're currently mining has produced in its lifetime eight million ounces of gold.

Lance Glinn:

Wow.

Gerard Bond:

So it's a district. And then we have 10 kilometers north of that operation an orebody that we booked a maiden reserve of called Wharekirauponga, or WKP for short. And it's one of the world's best undeveloped orebodies. What makes it good? It's high grade. The reserve is nine grams per ton. That's in our industry considered high grade. And it's large, it's 1.2 million ounces reserve, but we expect that to grow. So we are putting money into drilling to expand the size of the oil body and our drill results. We released some last week, were really impressive. So we're confident that it will continue to grow. And we are building a tunnel about four kilometers north of the process plant to go six kilometers to the orebody, and then we're going to tram it all the way back underground to the existing process plant. So it's basically an invisible underground mine.

Lance Glinn:

Wow.

Gerard Bond:

And you might say, why are you doing that? Well, topographically, it's pretty challenging, and it's a forest park. And so we are being environmentally responsible, and we're going to mine from underground. We'll have zero surface expression, but we're going to get this high grade ore to a mill that's been going for many decades. And we think that down around the Waihi mine, there's been eight million ounces produced. Under explored, but already known all body can grow to be something similar, we'll be operating there for decades to come. And it's organic growth. We know the gold is there. We've got all the permits, we received all the permits necessary to do this project in December of last year. We're in pure execution mode, which is super exciting.

Lance Glinn:

Is finding the gold, or you said you know the gold is there, right? So is finding these locations. This is going to sound really probably stupid to say the least. Is that sort of like a guess and check? How do you determine, "Okay, this is the location we know where gold is, this is the location we want to start drilling, here's where we're going to get the permits," so on and so forth? How do you determine, how did you know that that's where gold was and that's the location that you wanted to start focusing in on?

Gerard Bond:

Yeah, there's this unique breed called geologists. Well, there's a subset of those called exploration geologists that get excited about this stuff. And they go hunting. This district has had been mined for a long time. There was outcropping of this oil body, that means expressions at surface that people in the 1800s found. And so that kind of gave us a bit of an indication as to where the drilling should be done. The average diameter of a drill is about the diameter of that cup.

Lance Glinn:

Oh, wow.

Gerard Bond:

And so from surface, you're drilling down and you are hunting, and this all bodies is narrow. And so it takes some skill, it takes some financial wherewithal, but we were confident that it was there, and we're doubling our drilling to grow that size of that orebody. But typically where you find gold, just the way the world works, you typically find gold nearby. And that's what we hope to be the case here at the Wharekirauponga.

Lance Glinn:

It all sorts of congregates together, so to speak.

Gerard Bond:

Yeah.

Lance Glinn:

So, I do want to pivot the conversation to culture and accountability for a couple of minutes. And obviously that's something that we've talked about over the course of the conversation already. You have mentioned quite often safety and responsible mine, or safe and responsible mining. I should say all of these places, you discussed residential mines, how they're communities, right? They're more than just fly in for two weeks, fly out. You really get to know the people. You get to know the people you work with, the people that you work for, you really get to know the area, because there's a deeper connection than just being sort of an employee for OceanaGold. You're part of the land, so to speak. You're part of the community where these mines are.

But to that point of safe and responsible mining, when you talk about that safety, when you talk about the responsibility, besides say the numbers of, okay, this is what our safety reading is, this is what our responsibility reading is, whatever it might be, what does that really mean in practice? Can you dive a little bit more into that? What does safe and responsible mining really, really mean?

Gerard Bond:

Yeah, it means that we want everyone that comes to work to go home to their family at the end of every shift. And that requires constant vigilance, constant care. It requires training, and then it requires processes to ensure that people are kept safe. And so we have invest a lot of time and effort in making sure that people trained for the work that they do, are supervised, and that we have a structured process, variously stop and think programs before we do any tasks, you stop and you think and you do a risk assessment. And we now use an online tool that most global mining companies are using that allows us to make sure that all the controls necessary for a task are in place.

And you have to actually check that off before you commence that task, and just so that people are not taking needless risks. Because the thing that we always say, we're not interested in unsafe ounces. And nothing that we do, nothing that we do is worth anyone suffering a serious injury or worse in pursuing that. And then that culture of, again, of care, and that we have five values, our first value is care, that's the most important one. Care for yourself, care for your teammates, and safe production is how you are a successful business, unsafe production, no one benefits from that.

So we just talk about it all the time. We make it real. And then, so we have structured tools, and then we have this program called Our Safe, where every crew, every site crafts their own commitments to being a safe workplace. And you're free to design it. I was at Haile gold mine about five weeks ago, and each crew has their own logo, and they have their own sayings that they are going to use. They've crafted them.

Lance Glinn:

So you're essentially empowering the people that work on the mines.

Gerard Bond:

Exactly. And it's their taglines, their sayings, their code that enshrines their commitment to keep each other and themselves safe. And it's working.

Lance Glinn:

And off that point about culture and safety and responsibility and really empowerment too, right? This NYSE listing, a big step, obviously, as we discussed towards the beginning of our conversation for OceanaGold, one that wouldn't have happened if the success wasn't already there. How do you continue to promote growth? How do you continue to promote innovation, ambition, empowerment, and ensure that complacency doesn't happen? Because I think that's sort of the scary thing for a lot of companies, regardless of the industry, is that you reach a certain level and people get prideful as they obviously should for the success that they've had, but they become complacent, or they become potentially stuck in ways that may have worked to get to where you want to get to, but might not work to get even further. So, how do you continue to promote that innovation and continue to promote that constant growth and that constant success?

Gerard Bond:

Yeah, great question. I mean, no one's ever going to accuse OceanaGold of being complacent. Our assets keep management humble. There are many things that can go against you, weather, grade, breakdowns, and so forth. So you've got to be on top of your game. And I'm really pleased that, again, our people take pride in what they do. They are used to winning, and they want to keep on winning. But you can't take your foot off the operating discipline necessary to keep that gold flowing. It is so interdependent, and everyone has a really important to do in the chain. Every role at all of our sites matters. We have metrics, we have measures, we have team performance, incentives, capabilities that they need to deliver on, and that all work. And people know what their job does in service of the success of that site. There's endless opportunities to improve.

I mean, mining is very metricized. You know how many tons... If you are a bugger operator, you're driving a truck that underground that is taking, or from the face of where you're mining to the tip off point or to surface, you know how many tons you've lifted per shift. And so these drivers will say, "Well, I want to do at least that today or more tomorrow." I And then in the process plant, likewise, you know your availability rate, you know your throughput rate, you know yields, you've got all these metrics. And our success is in incentivizing people and encouraging them to find ways to do things differently to make that micro percent different.

And again, Macraes, I'll go right back to the beginning. Macraes is the embodiment of this relentless hunger. One of the people that came to New York with us today, a guy called Quentin Johnson, he's worked for us at Macraes for 27 or 28 years. And he did two years at Haile as well. But that guy knows I think where every bolt is on every part of that process plant. And he is as hungry today to do better tomorrow than he was when he first started.

Lance Glinn:

Wow.

Gerard Bond:

And he's infected his team with that hunger. And then when we look at the tools, the world has evolved to give us more tools. The computing power, data science, artificial intelligence, it presents a realm of opportunities for us to find those one percenters that we spoke of before.

Lance Glinn:

And so to wrap up our conversation, this to some, this listing on the NYSE to some could really signal sort of like a next chapter in the company's journey. And we obviously just talked too about not getting complacent. Sure, you can celebrate the growth that has been achieved, but you always want to go higher, you always want to continue to grow, continue to innovate. So, if that's the case, and if this is considered sort of like a next chapter for OceanaGold, once the celebration ends, once things get fully back to business, what does this next chapter of OceanaGold look like?

Gerard Bond:

Yeah, it looks like following the same recipe that we've done over the last four years, which has been the biggest transformation in terms of value creation for the company. We went from one and a half billion dollars of market cap to seven billion US of market cap in a four-year period. What did we do in that period, it's going to be the same thing we did. Sorry, what are you going to do in future years, it will be the same as what we did in the past four. Focus on safe and responsible mining. Get the most gold out of the ground safely and responsibly. Secondly, have a fabulous culture. We do. And we'll continue to invest in being in our people and the culture that we have, because it really is the foundation of getting that gold out of the ground.

Three, continue to explore and add reserves and resources to your portfolio. You could always have to build your infantry, because every day you take some out, [inaudible 00:32:30] replace it. Fourth, be financially strong and disciplined with capital. Again, we are, no debt, $477 million in the bank and growing. And we allocate that as if it's our own money. We are not wasteful with capital.

And then the fifth part, which is very much ties into the listing today, be excellent at our engagement with the investment community. I think we have a great IR team, we have a great comms team, we are very transparent. The material that we give to the market is absolutely first-rate. And we'll continue to do all five. And by doing that, I think back to that saying, confidence comes from past success. I'm confident if we continue to do what made us successful in the past, we'll be successful going forward.

And the board backs this. I mean, this year we tripled our dividend that we planned to give to our shareholders in 2026. We've doubled our planned buyback of shares. We'll still add more cash to the balance sheet, and we're still hungry for growth inside of our portfolio, and we scan what's available elsewhere. So, it's a fabulous position to be in.

Lance Glinn:

Well, congratulations on the NYSE listening. It's been great having you on. Thanks so much for joining us Inside the ICE House.

Gerard Bond:

Thank you, Lance.

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