Equinox Gold's Canadian Mines Made 59% of Its Third-Quarter Gold

Three mines in Ontario and Newfoundland produced most of Equinox Gold's gold in the third quarter of 2026. It was the first quarter in which the company owned Orla Mining's assets, and the production release Equinox issued on October 13 describes a business whose centre of gravity has moved north.

Greenstone, Musselwhite and Valentine together produced about 59 per cent of the quarter's 237,019 ounces, according to that release. The share counts only two months of Musselwhite, because the Orla combination closed at the end of July. Equinox's chairman, Chuck Jeannes, said at closing that more than 60 per cent of production would come from "three long-life mines in Canada", and the first partial quarter came close to that on its own.

Orla brought two producing mines, a Nevada project and 378.1 million new shares

The combination was an all-share exchange. Under a court-approved plan of arrangement, each Orla share became one Equinox share plus US$0.0001 in cash, according to Equinox's management's discussion and analysis (MD&A) for the quarter to June 30, 2026, dated August 5. A plan of arrangement is a Canadian court-supervised procedure that lets one company absorb another once shareholders and a judge approve it.

Equinox issued 378.1 million shares, which the MD&A valued at US$3.6 billion. Existing Equinox holders kept about two thirds of the enlarged company. The new shares are about 32 per cent of the 1,167,459,822 common shares outstanding at August 5, 2026, per the MD&A.

The two mines are Musselwhite, an underground mine in northwestern Ontario, and Camino Rojo in Mexico. The combination also brought Orla's South Railroad project in Nevada. The MD&A also records that Orla's revolving credit facility and term loan, US$115.7 million in total, were repaid after closing.

The management structure changed with the deal. The closing release named Jason Simpson as president, with Darren Hall retiring as chief executive effective October 31, 2026 and Simpson to succeed him after a three-month transition. Simpson is quoted as president in the October 13 release, the company's most recent.

The quarter in ounces

Equinox reported production of 237,019 ounces and sales of 248,484 ounces for the three months to September 30, 2026. Selling more than it mined means some inventory from earlier periods was sold in the quarter. The release's per-mine table reads as follows.

The release also gives full-quarter figures for the two acquired mines. Full-quarter production was 63,090 ounces at Musselwhite and 26,168 ounces at Camino Rojo, the release's footnote says, so the July output Equinox did not own was about 17,474 and 7,193 ounces. Adding those lifts the quarter to roughly 261,686 ounces, a pro forma figure (one calculated as if the deal had closed on July 1) rather than a reported result. Simpson said Valentine's mill feed grade averaged over 1.8 grams of gold per tonne in the quarter, and the release said both Valentine and Greenstone are "positioned for stronger production through the remainder of 2026 and into 2027."

Year-to-date production was 611,483 ounces, and Equinox reaffirmed its 2026 guidance of 870,000 to 920,000 ounces, first set on August 5 after the combination.

Meeting the low end requires 258,517 ounces in the fourth quarter. That is about 9 per cent more than the third quarter's reported output and close to the pro forma figure, with three full months of both acquired mines counted for the first time.

The balance sheet moved to reported net cash ahead of a note redemption

Debt reduction has been the steadiest theme in Equinox's 2026 releases, and the October 13 release puts numbers on it. Equinox repaid US$190 million of debt in the third quarter and about US$1.2 billion so far in 2026, the release said.

At June 30, 2026, Equinox reported net debt of US$265.2 million, per the August 5 MD&A.

At September 30, 2026, the company reported cash of US$527 million and net cash of US$163 million. The net cash figure excludes its in-the-money 2023 convertible notes, which the release said would be redeemed for US$172.5 million in October, an amount slightly larger than the reported net cash. The September 30 figures come from the production release; the financial statements for the quarter are scheduled for November 9, 2026.

The revolving credit facility had US$365 million drawn at September 30, leaving US$635 million undrawn, for total liquidity of about US$1.2 billion.

Shareholders also received cash. The quarterly dividend was raised 50 per cent to US$0.0225 a share on August 5, and Equinox bought back 1,697,600 shares for about US$20.7 million in 2026 up to October 9, according to the October 13 release, which said repurchases may continue in the fourth quarter.

Costs are the other side of the ledger. The August guidance set all-in sustaining costs at US$1,900 to US$2,000 per ounce for 2026. All-in sustaining cost is the industry's measure of what it costs to produce an ounce and keep the mines running, before growth spending. The consolidated figure for the quarter to June 30, 2026 was US$2,175 per ounce, up from US$1,961 a year earlier, which the August 5 MD&A attributed mainly to higher cash costs from the Calibre assets (the mines that came with Equinox's 2025 acquisition of Calibre Mining, including Valentine and the Nicaragua operations), Valentine's ramp-up after commercial production and higher diesel costs, partly offset by higher ounces sold. The full-year guidance is set below the second-quarter figure. Third-quarter costs arrive with the November statements.

Los Filos has a 20-year land deal and sits outside guidance

Los Filos, in the Mexican state of Guerrero, is the Equinox asset with the least production attached to it. Operations there were indefinitely suspended on April 1, 2025, after the land access agreements with local communities expired, and the asset was reclassified as a development project, according to the August 5 MD&A.

On June 25, 2026, Equinox announced 20-year land access agreements with all three host communities: Carrizalillo, Mezcala and Xochipala. A land access agreement is the contract under which a community allows the company to use its surface land, and in Mexico these agreements, rather than ownership of the land, govern whether a mine can operate. The release said restart work covers environmental remediation, permitting, rehiring and retraining workers, and supplier contracts, and that the company would plan a gradual restart of heap leaching, a method that dissolves gold from crushed ore stacked on lined pads. Longer-term options include a carbon-in-leach mill.

The June release gave no restart date and no production figure, and Los Filos does not appear in the October 13 production table. The last reserve estimate the company cites is 5.4 million ounces as at June 30, 2022, calculated at a gold price of US$1,450 per ounce. The company said in the June release that it believes there may be opportunities to enhance project economics through updated metal prices.

The closing release for the Orla combination lists Los Filos among the projects the company's growth outlook depends on. The documents give the Los Filos question its facts: a 2025 suspension tied to expired agreements, new 20-year agreements signed in June 2026, a heap-leach restart in planning, and no date. My own view is that the agreements remove the specific cause of the 2025 suspension, and that the mine's contribution to Equinox cannot be measured until the company publishes a restart schedule and updated economics.

Where the shares traded on October 22

Equinox shares were trading at C$14.45 at midday on October 22, 2026, down 6.89 per cent, on 0.58 times their 30-day average volume, according to QuoteMedia's 15-minute-delayed data (secondary market data, not verified against SEDAR+). The shares closed at C$14.48, down 6.70 per cent, on 3,335,231 shares traded on the TSX, about 1.04 times the 30-day average, per end-of-day data read at 14:02 Pacific on October 22, 2026 from TMX Money, which put the market value at about C$16.9 billion at the close. Agnico Eagle closed down 6.24 per cent, Kinross down 5.06 per cent and IAMGOLD down 7.96 per cent, per TMX Money end-of-day data read at 13:21 Pacific the same day.

Spot gold was quoted at US$4,027.34 an ounce that afternoon, down US$106.38 on the day, on the price feed carried on IAMGOLD's investor site, read at about 13:00 Pacific. On filed figures, IAMGOLD reported attributable production of 188,100 ounces and all-in sustaining costs of US$2,271 per ounce sold for the second quarter of 2026, in its August 6 results, beside Equinox's 237,019 ounces for the third quarter and US$2,175 per ounce for the second. The comparison is rough: the two companies run different mines in different countries, the production figures cover different quarters, and each defines its cost measure in its own filings.

Equinox trades in Toronto and on the NYSE American as EQX and in Germany under the symbol 1LRC (WKN A2PQPG, ISIN CA29446Y5020), per Deutsche Börse's instrument page.

What the November 9 statements will settle

Equinox reports third-quarter financial and operating results after the market closes on November 9, 2026, with a conference call at 7:00 a.m. Pacific on November 10. Those statements will put filed detail behind the release's figures: cash and debt at September 30, the quarter's unit costs by mine, and the accounting for the Orla acquisition.

Growth outside Mexico has a date. South Railroad in Nevada received its federal Record of Decision and final federal permits and started early works, with first gold planned for 2028, the October 13 release said. The company's 2026 growth capital guidance is US$600 to US$650 million.

Three items will show whether the quarter's shape holds. Fourth-quarter production against the 258,517-ounce threshold is the first. Whether the company's 2027 guidance, when it is issued, includes any Los Filos ounces is the second. The third is how the redemption of the 2023 convertible notes, which the October 13 release said would be redeemed for US$172.5 million on or before October 19, shows in the November statements.

Los Filos has its agreements back and no schedule. The Canadian mines did most of the work this quarter, and on November 9 Equinox files the statements that show what that work cost.