The following interview is taken from Mining IQ's Leadership Insights 2025 report, on the theme of unlocking growth, featuring exclusive interviews with executives from 17 larger mining companies, plus findings of an industrywide survey on the growth theme.

The full report is available for sale here (or free for Premium subscribers).

 

Name: Ammar Al-Joundi

Company: AGNICO EAGLE MINES

Position: President and chief executive

Please summarise your growth ambitions for 2030.

Agnico Eagle is one of the two largest gold mining companies globally. We are well-positioned to continue driving sustainable growth through disciplined cost management and one of the best project pipelines in the business.

While our production guidance for 2025-2027 remains stable at peer-leading costs, we continue to advance five projects that will drive future growth and potentially add between 0.5 Moz and 1.0 Moz per annum of gold to our current production profile in the next decade. 

Our vision is to bring two of our world-class assets, Detour Lake in Ontario and Canadian Malartic in Quebec, to 1 Mozpa gold production, up from about 700,000 ozpa and 600,000 ozpa, respectively.

We are also advancing our Upper Beaver project in Ontario, which we expect to provide 200,000 ozpa gold in 2030/2031, and Hope Bay in Nunavut, where a redevelopment scenario could add ~400,000 ozpa in the 2030s. Finally, we have San Nicolás, a copper project in Zacatecas, Mexico, which we expect to provide ~200,000 ozpa on a gold equivalent basis, potentially starting in the 2030s. We are advancing a feasibility study with our joint venture partner, Teck Resources.

These are projects we already own, where we can use our expertise and, in many cases, existing infrastructure. It's lower-risk growth and profitable production, leveraging our strengths and competitive advantages.

What are the biggest challenges to growth, and how will you overcome them?

In a capital-intensive industry with multi-decade investment horizons, volatility and uncertainty are the biggest challenges to growth in mining.

Commodity prices swing – sometimes wildly – with geopolitics, supply chain disruptions, and economic conditions. Volatile markets demand discipline, agility and flexibility to build uncertainty into your business, financial planning and decision-making.

Part of being disciplined is to do your homework before committing millions or billions of dollars. Agnico Eagle's approach, focusing on politically stable regions with multi-decade geologic potential, provides us with a knowledge advantage. 

Where we don't have the knowledge, we take a lower-risk approach by starting small, taking toehold positions or investing in early-stage projects with juniors or partners so we can acquire the knowledge and better assess the potential before making more significant investments.

Even with our internal projects, we take a measured approach to de-risk projects, build in flexibility and give ourselves optionality in a volatile environment. At the Detour Lake underground and Upper Beaver projects, we are taking a phased approach, making initial investments over three years to build exploration infrastructure, take bulk samples to further assess and even expand the potential, and strengthen our mining scenarios before we sanction construction.

So, how do we overcome the challenge of volatility and uncertainty? We acquire the knowledge and stay disciplined, not only in cost management and capital expenditure but also in delivering what we said we would and operating safely and responsibly.

Build or buy: Does your growth strategy focus on organic growth or acquisitions?

Agnico Eagle has a long-term strategy that works, and we've been doing it for decades.

Our core strategy combines a global approach with a regional focus. We focus on regions that meet two criteria: geologic potential for multiple mines over multiple decades and the political stability to operate multiple mines over multiple decades.

When you operate in a region for a long time, you develop a competitive advantage in knowledge and relationships. This strategy has worked. Agnico Eagle's share price has had a compounded annual growth rate of over 30% since the merger with Kirkland Lake Gold, compared to about 20% for the gold spot, 11% for the XAU and 5.5% for the S&P 500 Index.

Over the last 20 years, we've gone from one to 11 mines, from one to four countries, and from 240,000 ozpa gold to 3.4 Mozpa, but what really matters are the numbers on a per-share basis – that's how we measure success.

In the last 20 years, Agnico Eagle's gold production per share went up by a factor of ~2.5 to 7.0 oz per 1000 shares. Our EBITDA per share grew by a factor of ~10, and our annualised dividend per share by a factor of ~50. That is not just growth, it's value creation.

In recent years, we have grown production both through building and buying. In both cases, we are sticking with our long-standing strategy of regional consolidation and knowledge base investment.

We usually start with investments in early-stage projects. We add land positions or projects to expand the exploration potential at a camp or regional level. 

Through our exploration program and technical expertise, we then add value through the drill bit until there's sufficient knowledge and potential to build a mine. While we remain focused on internal growth, we continue to evaluate external opportunities that could complement our portfolio.

Is a lack of exploration spending holding back mining growth, and how will your exploration plans address this?

While over the last decade we have seen a decrease in exploration spending in the wider gold sector, exploration has always been an essential part of Agnico Eagle's business strategy, and we have consistently invested in exploration, through high and low cycles. In 2025, we expect to spend ~US$525 million on exploration drilling and infrastructure.

Our goal is to ensure we develop a best-in-class pipeline to replenish and grow reserves and resources, while maintaining the quality, manageability and fit of our assets. We aim to maintain gold reserves at over 10 times our annual gold production.

Part of our strategy is to invest in early-stage projects and add value through exploration. We have done it repeatedly in the regions where we operate and will continue to do so.

How big a role will the traditional ‘safe havens' of Canada, the US and Australia play in your growth plans, and why?

We are well established in Canada, Australia, Finland and Mexico, all regions with the geologic potential and political stability to operate multiple mines for multiple decades. They all play an important role in our growth strategy.

Currently, 85% of our gold production and 87% of our reserves come from Canada. We plan to continue to leverage our knowledge, expertise and infrastructure to support future growth in Canada. 

Agnico Eagle has a track record of value creation over more than 65 years – generating strong returns for shareholders, creating a great place to work and bringing prosperity to our employees, their families and communities – and we will continue with the same strategy for decades to come.

 

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