Pan American Silver Corp. (TSX:PAAS)(NASDAQ:PAAS) reported Wednesday its results for the first quarter of 2022. The company owns and operates silver and gold mines located in Canada, Mexico, Peru, Bolivia, and Argentina. The silver stock fell by 2% after the opening bell on Thursday.

Pan American Posts a Profit

Revenue came in at $439.9 million, up 19.5% from 368.1 million in Q1 2021, and beating analysts’ expectations by $14.72 million. Net income amounted to $76.8 million ($0.36 per share), compared to a loss of $7.6 million a year ago. Adjusted earnings were $32 million ($0.15 per share), down from $37.4 million ($0.18 per share). Analysts expected Non-GAAP EPS of $0.21 per share.

The Vancouver-based miner reported silver production of 4.619 million ounces and gold production of 131 thousand ounces in the quarter ended March 31, 2022, compared to 4,583 ounces of silver and 137.6 thousand ounces of gold in the prior-year quarter.

The board of directors has declared a cash dividend of $0.12 per common share, payable on or about June 3, 2022, to registered holders of Pan American common stock at the close of May 24, 2022. The dividend includes a base dividend of $0.10 per common share and a variable dividend of $0.02 per common share.

Pan American president and CEO commented:

“Pan American reported strong financial performance in the quarter, enabling us to declare a dividend of $0.12 per common share for Q1, in line with the new dividend policy announced in February 2022. As we indicated in our February 23, 2022, news release, our operations experienced high levels of workforce absenteeism in January and early February due to the Omicron variant of COVID-19. Workforce deployment is now back to more normal levels, and we are maintaining our guidance for 2022 with production weighted to the second half of the year.”

Update on La Colorada Skarn Project

On May 9, Pan American Silver announced it has extended mineralization at the La Colorada Skarn Project. The miner provided results from 43 new infill and exploration drill holes totaling 38,460 meters, all of which contain multiple skarn and breccia intersections. Highlights include infill hole U-04-22 with 233.70 meters at 44 g/t Ag, 4.05% Pb and 5.04% Zn and exit hole U-08-22 with 174.95 meters at 40 g/t Ag, 0.17% Pb and 7.95% Zn and 46.95 meters at 78 g/t Ag, 3.84% Pb, 8.79% Zn.

Christopher Emerson, Pan American’s Vice President Business Development and Geology said that they drilled more meters on the skarn in the first quarter of 2022 than in any other quarterly period, with infill drilling increasing their confidence in the central skarn resource and exploration drilling further defining extensions to the east, south and west.