Agnico Eagle Q3 2026: Gold Sold 23% Higher, Free Cash Flow Down 28%
Agnico Eagle Mines sold its gold in the third quarter at $4,264 an ounce, 22.7% more than the $3,476 it realized a year earlier. Over the same twelve months, its free cash flow fell 28.4%, from $1,189.5 million to $852.2 million. That is the quarter in one line, and it is the line the headline figures bury.
All figures here are in US dollars, which is how both Agnico Eagle and Kinross Gold report, although both trade in Canadian dollars on the TSX. Every percentage in this piece is our own arithmetic on the companies’ reported figures.
Kinross Gold reported its own third quarter the same day, and we covered those results in our piece on the Kinross results. This one is about the quarters themselves.
The quarter, figure by figure
| Q3 2026 | Q3 2025 | Change (our arithmetic) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Revenues from mining operations | $3,583.6M | $3,059.5M | +17.1% |
| Net income (reported, IFRS) | $1,352.9M | $1,055.0M | +28.2% |
| Diluted EPS (reported, IFRS) | $2.67 | $2.10 | |
| Adjusted net income (non-GAAP) | $1,324.3M | $1,085.2M | +22.0% |
| Adjusted EPS, basic (non-GAAP) | $2.62 | $2.16 | |
| Adjusted EPS, diluted (non-GAAP) | $2.61 | $2.16 | |
| Payable gold production | 814,012 oz | 866,936 oz | -6.1% |
| Realized gold price | $4,264/oz | $3,476/oz | +22.7% |
| Total cash costs per oz (by-product) | $1,133 | $952 | +19.0% |
| AISC per oz (by-product) | $1,648 | $1,331 | +23.8% |
| Operating cash flow | $1,755.0M | $1,815.9M | -3.4% |
| Free cash flow | $852.2M | $1,189.5M | -28.4% |
| Free cash flow per share (basic) | $1.68 | $2.37 | -29.1% |
| Free cash flow before working capital changes | $1,057.1M | $1,034.9M | +2.1% |
| Capital expenditures (total) | $921.2M | $643.9M | +43.1% |
Source: Agnico Eagle’s Q3 2026 earnings release.
Two labels in that table do real work. The first is reported against adjusted. Reported diluted EPS was $2.67 against $2.10 a year ago, and reported basic is also $2.67. The adjusted per-share figures are $2.62 basic and $2.61 diluted, against $2.16 on both bases. The $2.62 is the basic adjusted figure the release headlines; the diluted adjusted $2.61 appears in the income statement. No per-share figure from this quarter means much without both labels attached, because reported and adjusted have swapped places. In Q3 2025 the adjustments added to income, taking $1,055.0 million reported up to $1,085.2 million adjusted. In Q3 2026 they subtract, taking $1,352.9 million reported down to $1,324.3 million adjusted.
The second label matters more. The release is headlined “STRONG FREE CASH FLOW GENERATION DRIVEN BY SOLID OPERATIONAL PERFORMANCE”, and free cash flow fell. What rose is free cash flow before changes in non-cash working capital: $1,057.1 million against $1,034.9 million, up 2.1%. Both are the company’s own non-GAAP measures, and the gap between them is the whole difference between a strong quarter and a softer one. Agnico attributes that gap to working capital, chiefly Nunavut supplies inventory from the summer sealift, plus higher development capital spending.
A reader who has just been told that a release’s headline and its own cash flow line point in opposite directions is the reader who wants to run that check personally, which is a reconciliation-table exercise rather than a headline one. Our guide on how to read an annual report covers where adjusted measures and their reconciliations sit inside a filing.
Development capital and working capital explain the entire fall
Free cash flow is cash provided by operating activities less additions to property, plant and mine development, and both lines moved. Additions rose from $626.3 million to $902.8 million, up $276.5 million. That is the capital line inside the cash flow statement and the free cash flow reconciliation, not the $921.2 million of total capital expenditures in the table above: the two differ by the working capital adjustments on capital spending that the company sets out in its own reconciliation. Operating cash flow moved far less, from $1,815.9 million to $1,755.0 million, down $60.9 million. Those two add to $337.4 million, against a fall in free cash flow of $337.3 million. On our arithmetic the capital line is about 82% of it and the operating line about 18%.
The operating line did not fall because the business generated less cash. Cash from operations before changes in non-cash working capital rose from $1,661 million to $1,960 million, up 18%. The decline in the reported figure is working capital, the same item behind the gap between the two free cash flow measures above.
Inside the capital rise, development spending is nearly all of it. Development capital expenditures went from $316.1 million to $560.8 million, up $244.8 million, which is 89% of the increase in additions to property, plant and mine development.
Agnico says this itself, and names the projects: “Free cash flow decreased when compared to the prior-year periods due to unfavourable changes in non-cash components of working capital as described above related to cash provided by operating activities and higher development capital expenditures related to the Hope Bay, Odyssey and Detour Lake underground projects in each such period”.
The nine months read the same way once one item is put back. Nine-month free cash flow was $2,919.2 million against $3,088.7 million, down $169.5 million or 5.5%. But the release states that “for the first nine months of 2026, cash provided by operating activities was reduced by approximately $1.3 billion arising from cash taxes paid in the first quarter of 2026 relating to the 2025 taxation year”. A one-off settlement of the prior year’s tax liability, seven times the size of the nine-month shortfall, sits inside that comparison, and the company reports that nine-month operating cash flow rose year over year both as reported and before working capital changes.
The ounces fell, the unit costs rose, and the price covered both
Fewer ounces. Payable gold production was 814,012 ounces against 866,936, down 6.1%. Over nine months, 2,494,937 ounces against 2,606,759.
Higher cost per ounce. All-in sustaining costs were $1,648 an ounce against $1,331, up 23.8%. Total cash costs were $1,133 against $952, up 19.0%, and production costs per ounce $1,193 against $963. The Q3 2025 cost comparatives are the restated figures this release prints, so those percentages are like-for-like on the company’s current composition.
Both of those are real, and neither is what took the cash down. Agnico’s realized gold price rose $788 an ounce, from $3,476 to $4,264. Its all-in sustaining cost per ounce produced rose $317. The price gain is more than twice the cost increase, which is why reported net income rose 28.2% and cash from operations before working capital changes rose 18% in a quarter that poured 6.1% less gold. The company attributes the higher earnings primarily to higher realized gold prices and lower care and maintenance expenses at Hope Bay, partially offset by higher production costs related to labour, royalties and diesel. One qualification on the price: the $4,264 realized in Q3 is below Agnico’s own nine-month average of $4,537, so the third quarter was not the company’s best pricing of the year.
Guidance: the ranges held, the expected position within them moved
Every 2026 range is unchanged from the second quarter. Gold production stays at 3.3 to 3.5 million ounces, expected “near the lower end”, which the company says reflects “the adjusted mine plan for the Barnat open pit at Canadian Malartic” disclosed on July 2, 2026. Total cash costs stay at $1,020 to $1,120 per ounce and AISC at $1,400 to $1,550. Capital expenditures excluding capitalized exploration stay at $2.6 to $2.8 billion, with capitalized exploration at $290 to $330 million.
That mine plan was adjusted for a specific event. A localized rock mass movement occurred along the north wall of the Barnat pit on July 1, 2026, mining was suspended while geotechnical assessment and remediation were completed, and operations resumed on September 27, 2026, which the release headlines as a restart on schedule. The company says it believes the movement “will not affect the development or production outlook for the Odyssey mine”, the underground mine Agnico is building at Canadian Malartic.
What moved is where inside the cost ranges Agnico now expects to land. In Q2 it said cost guidance “remains unchanged”. This release says full-year total cash costs and AISC “are expected to be near the upper end of the guidance range of $1,020 to $1,120 and $1,400 to $1,550, respectively, reflecting the adjusted production plan and input cost pressures”. The guidance section puts both halves of that in one sentence: “The Company is experiencing input cost pressures, primarily related to diesel and consumables. Despite these pressures, total cash costs per ounce and all-in sustaining costs per ounce are expected to remain within the full year guidance ranges, albeit towards the upper end.”
One more expectation moved in the same direction, and it is the harder of the two. “The Company now expects depreciation and amortization expense to be towards the upper end of the $1.55 billion to $1.75 billion guidance range, primarily due to a higher amortization rate used at Canadian Malartic following adjustments to the Barnat open pit mine plan. The adjusted mine plan uses a higher units-of-production amortization rate resulting from a decrease in the total tonnes over the life of mine.” The Q2 release carried no such commentary, so “now expects” is new, and the reason is the part to read twice. A units-of-production rate rises when the tonnes it is spread over shrink. Barnat did not only cost Agnico 2026 ounces. It cost it life-of-mine tonnes.
That is not a guidance cut, and calling it one would be wrong. It is a reaffirmed set of ranges with a worse expected outcome inside them.
The number that makes the pressure concrete is the quarter’s own AISC. At $1,648 an ounce, Q3 printed above the $1,550 top of the full-year range Agnico is reaffirming. The nine-month figure, $1,529, sits inside the range. The year can still land where the company says it will. The most recent quarter did not.
Five years of costs, five years of cash
Agnico Eagle all-in sustaining cost per ounce by fiscal year, USD, non-GAAP, by-product basis, on the cost composition the company reported through FY2025. Source: Agnico Eagle Mines Limited, Form 40-F for FY2025, Exhibit 99.3 MD&A, all-in sustaining cost reconciliation printed page 51, for FY2023 to FY2025; and Form 40-F for FY2023, Exhibit 99.3 MD&A, same reconciliation printed page 56, for FY2021 and FY2022.
Costs rose in every one of those years on that composition: $1,059 in FY2021, then $1,109, $1,179, $1,239 and $1,339 in FY2025. For periods beginning on or after January 1, 2026 the company revised how all-in sustaining costs per ounce are composed, to adjust for payments made under its mineral production leases in respect of the Amaruq mine at Meadowbank, and it published FY2023 to FY2025 on the revised basis without restating FY2021 or FY2022. The 2026 figures are on the revised basis, so the comparison that holds for this year’s $1,529 over nine months is revised FY2025 at $1,313, not the $1,339 in the chart above. That is $216 an ounce of increase on a consistent basis, our arithmetic. Whatever this quarter was, a cost surprise is not it.
Agnico Eagle free cash flow by fiscal year, USD millions, the company’s own non-GAAP measure. Source: Agnico Eagle Mines Limited, Form 40-F for FY2025, Exhibit 99.3 MD&A, free cash flow table printed page 42, for FY2023 to FY2025; and Form 40-F for FY2023, Exhibit 99.3 MD&A, free cash flow table printed page 46, for FY2021 and FY2022. The FY2021 figure is the company’s restated figure, first published in its FY2022 filing.
Cash has gone the other way and gone there fast: $448 million in FY2021 to $4,399 million in FY2025. The first step in that series is not growth. Agnico completed its merger of equals with Kirkland Lake Gold on February 8, 2022, issuing 209,274,263 common shares and consolidating the Detour Lake and Macassa mines in Ontario and Fosterville in Australia from that date, so FY2021 and the years after it are not the same company. From FY2022 on the trajectory is the company’s own, and it is why a year-over-year fall in the current quarter is worth naming rather than filing under noise.
Where the money went
Agnico declared a quarterly dividend of $0.45 per share, payable December 15, 2026 to holders of record on December 1, 2026, and the release notes the company “has declared a cash dividend every year since 1983”. The rate did not change: $0.45 has been the figure for all four quarters of 2026. Gross dividends were $228 million in the quarter and $678 million over nine months.
Buybacks did the rest. Agnico repurchased 1,297,940 shares in the quarter at an average of $192.60, about $250 million, and 4,255,098 shares over nine months at an average of $187.94, about $800 million, under a normal course issuer bid. Total returned in the quarter was about $478 million, or 56% of the quarter’s $852.2 million of free cash flow. Q2’s $625 million of returns was described in that quarter’s release as a record. This quarter’s $478 million is not.
The nine-month figure is the one that compares to anything. Gross dividends of $678 million plus about $800 million of repurchases is about $1,478 million against $2,919.2 million of nine-month free cash flow, or about 51% on our arithmetic. That is the number to set against an annual target, or against another company’s nine months. The 56% belongs to the quarter.
Behind that $478 million sits a target Agnico moved this quarter. This release states that “at current spot gold prices and subject to operational needs, the Company anticipates returning more than 50% of free cash flow to shareholders in 2026 through dividends and share repurchases.” Three months ago the same section of the second-quarter release set “a target to return approximately 40% of annual free cash flow to shareholders, assuming current gold prices and subject to operational needs.” Roughly 40% became more than 50% between the two documents, on the same 2026 annual basis and with the same two conditions attached. Agnico does not present the change as an increase, and the roughly 51% it has paid out over nine months already sits at the new figure.
The mechanism did not change with the number. The dividend is the stable half and the buyback is the discretionary one: the company “prioritizes delivering stable returns to shareholders through its dividend program and continuing to reinvest in the business to support long-term value creation. Excess cash flow may be returned opportunistically through the NCIB when the Company believes market conditions provide an attractive opportunity to repurchase shares.”
The reinvestment half of that is where the rise in development capital shows up. CEO commentary in the release: “We are making excellent progress across our project pipeline, with the focus on continuing our long track record of increasing gold production per share for our owners. Construction is ramping up at Hope Bay, the first phase of shaft sinking is complete at Odyssey and project infrastructure continues to advance at Upper Beaver and Detour Lake.” Per share is the right frame, and the per-share cash line is where it currently sits: free cash flow of $1.68 a share in the quarter against $2.37, and $5.81 over nine months against $6.15, even after 4.3 million shares were retired.
The balance sheet carries it comfortably. Cash and equivalents were $3,613.1 million at September 30 against total debt of $197.1 million, for net cash of $3,416.0 million on the company’s own measure, up $149 million on the prior quarter.
Both majors raised the share of cash they hand back, in the same quarter
Kinross Gold reported in the same hour, and the comparison worth drawing is on cash and capital. During the quarter it lifted its return-of-capital commitment: “Reflecting its strong cash flow and balance sheet strength, Kinross increased its 2026 return of capital commitment from 40% to 50% of free cash flow.” Its CEO added: “During the quarter, we increased our 2026 return of capital target to 50% of full-year free cash flow and have returned over $950 million to shareholders year-to-date. Since April 2025, we have repurchased approximately 5% of our shares outstanding.” The release does not say which of its free cash flow measures the 50% is read against.
Kinross’s quarter looks like Agnico’s, only steeper. Attributable free cash flow was $281.3 million against $686.7 million a year earlier, down 59.0%, with capital spending up 41% to $439.6 million. The nine months read differently: attributable free cash flow of $1,845.6 million against $1,714.1 million, up 7.7%, where Agnico’s nine-month figure was down 5.5%. On the quarterly drop, Kinross says: “Both metrics were impacted by timing of sales and higher capital expenditure spending in Q3 2026.”
The capital story ends in the same place for both. Over nine months Kinross has generated more free cash than it did a year ago and Agnico has generated less, yet both of them lifted the share of it they intend to return in the same quarter: Kinross from 40% to 50% of free cash flow, Agnico from approximately 40% to more than 50%. Two companies whose nine months ran in opposite directions landed on the same number at the same time. That says more about what a $4,264 ounce does to a gold producer’s balance sheet than about either company’s read on its own quarter.
The difference is in the wording, and it is not trivial. Kinross calls its 50% a commitment it increased and reports hitting 46% of free cash flow over the first nine months of 2026 against it. Agnico calls its figure what the company “anticipates” at current spot gold prices and subject to operational needs, which is a conditional expectation rather than a promise, and the condition is the gold price that this quarter’s cost line already failed to fully convert.
The sharper comparison is unit cost, and it runs the other way. Agnico’s all-in sustaining cost was $1,648 per ounce of gold produced, by-product basis. Kinross’s attributable all-in sustaining cost was $1,947 per gold equivalent ounce sold. The denominators are not identical, but these are the headline cost figures each company chose to publish for the same three months, and the two sold into near-identical prices: Kinross realized $4,249 an ounce against Agnico’s $4,264. Same quarter, effectively the same ounce of revenue, and $299 an ounce between them in what it cost to produce.
Kinross also reports two deaths at one of its mines, in its own words: “In September 2026, two unrelated safety incidents occurred at Bald Mountain. As a result, one business partner employee suffered fatal injuries on site, and another was seriously injured. The second business partner employee later passed away in hospital.” The company says it “extends its deepest condolences to their families, friends and colleagues” and that “following these incidents, Kinross held company-wide Safety Stand Downs to reinforce safety practices and controls”.
On capital, Kinross repurchased $710 million of shares in the first three quarters and $100 million more in October. Its dividend is $0.04 per share, record November 19 and payable December 3, 2026. Cash was $2,638.4 million against long-term debt of $739.2 million, for net cash of about $1.9 billion.
What this leaves a holder with
The constructive read is strong. Agnico earned $1.35 billion in three months, holds $3.4 billion of net cash against $197 million of debt, reaffirmed every 2026 guidance range, is funding Hope Bay, Odyssey, Upper Beaver and Detour Lake out of operating cash flow, and still handed shareholders $478 million. The cash that did not reach shareholders this quarter went into working capital and into those projects, and cash generation before working capital rose in both the quarter and the nine months: $1,057.1 million against $1,034.9 million for the three months, and $3,978 million against $2,586 million for the nine.
The cautious read comes out of the same release. The operating business delivered fewer ounces at a higher cost, in a fifth consecutive year of rising unit costs, and free cash flow per share fell to $1.68 from $2.37 at a realized price above $4,200 an ounce. The quarter’s AISC printed above the top of the full-year range. And Barnat’s revised mine plan has now shown up twice, once in production guidance and once in an amortization rate that rises because there are fewer tonnes left to spread it over.
With gold where it is, the question for a holder of either name is no longer whether the price is high enough. It is whether the cost line lets that price reach the shareholder, and on the headline cost figures the two companies published for this quarter, Agnico’s is $299 an ounce better at it. Q4 results and 2027 guidance answer the rest, and that is why the cost chart above matters more than the earnings headline. Agnico ranks first among the Canadian mining stocks we track, and the standing case for it runs straight through that cost line.
Primary sources: Agnico Eagle Q3 2026 earnings release and Kinross Gold Q3 2026 earnings release. Data as of the September 30, 2026 quarter end, reported October 28, 2026.
Disclaimer: The content on bestcanadianstocks.ca is for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Always consult a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions. Company figures from Agnico Eagle Mines’ own Q3 2026 earnings release (October 28, 2026) and its Q2 2026 release for the cross-quarter comparisons; Kinross Gold figures from its own Q3 2026 release and separate dividend declaration. Five-fiscal-year chart series from Agnico’s Form 40-F annual filings. All percentages are our arithmetic on the companies’ reported figures.
