Fresnillo silver output falls 11.6%, gold production declines in third quarter
Key Facts
Fresnillo's attributable silver production fell to 10.3 million ounces in the third quarter of 2026, down 11.6% year on year, according to Investing's coverage of the company's operational results. Attributable gold production was 135,053 ounces over the same period, with output declining for both precious metals covered in the update. Gold production fell 10.7% from the corresponding quarter a year earlier, according to the same coverage. The company produced 151,256 ounces of gold in the third quarter of 2025, according to its operational report for that year. The year-on-year production decline came as Chief Executive Octavio Alvídrez said the company remained on track to meet its full-year guidance.
The third-quarter decline in silver followed a drop in the second quarter, when attributable production stood at 10,928 thousand ounces, according to the production table published for investors. That represented a decline of 1.7% from the first quarter of the same year, when Fresnillo produced 11,121 thousand ounces, according to its report for that period. Year on year, second-quarter production fell 9.3% on a basis excluding the contribution from the Silverstream agreement. Fresnillo said in its first-quarter report that the end of the agreement's contribution in the fourth quarter of 2025 weighed on year-on-year silver production comparisons. Total silver production in the third quarter of 2025 was about 11,681 thousand ounces, including Silverstream, according to the report for that period.
Gold production had risen quarter on quarter before declining in the third quarter, reaching 154,812 ounces in the second quarter, according to Fresnillo's investor table. Production in that period rose 13.8% from the previous quarter, with volumes above their level at the start of the year. First-quarter output was 136,074 ounces, according to the company's operational report for that quarter. Despite the quarterly increase in the second quarter, gold production was still 1.9% below its level in the corresponding period a year earlier. Third-quarter production then fell below the second-quarter level to 135,053 ounces, according to Investing's coverage of the latest update.
Fresnillo lowered its gold production forecast range for 2026 when it issued annual guidance in January, according to its report for the fourth quarter of the previous year. The company set the new range at 500 to 550 thousand ounces of attributable production for the year. Before that update, the range it had indicated was between 515 and 565 thousand ounces, according to the guidance table in the report. Explaining the expected decline at the Herradura mine, the company said some production scheduled for the current year had been brought forward into the previous year. Fresnillo said in the report that this included moving some production scheduled for 2026 into 2025, as part of the background to its operational outlook issued in January.
On the financial front, Fresnillo benefited from higher realised gold prices in the first half of 2026, according to Investing's coverage of the earnings call for that period. The average realised price was $4,647 per ounce, the price associated with the company's sales during the first half. That represented an increase of 47% year on year, with the price improving from the corresponding period a year earlier. The average realised price in the first half of 2025 was $3,169 per ounce, according to the same coverage. Higher prices supported the company's financial backdrop despite lower production, while silver guidance issued with the first-quarter results targeted annual production of between 42 and 46.5 million ounces.
Commenting on the third quarter, Alvídrez said: "Gold and silver production was in line with expectations, and we remain on track to meet our full-year guidance." His assurance concerned targets for the full year, following the end of the operating period that saw year-on-year declines in production of both metals. On upcoming operational work, Fresnillo had set the fourth quarter of 2026 as the expected date for completing the connection between the two sections of the Jarillas shaft at the Saucito mine. That timing appeared in its first-quarter operational update, among the work the company discussed at the mine at the time. The expected date concerns completion of the connection between the two shaft sections, according to the plan Fresnillo announced in that report.