Hudbay Minerals Inc.

Thank you, Operator.

Good morning and welcome to HUD-BAY's 2023 Third Quarter Results Conference Call. HUD-BAY's financial results were issued yesterday and are available on our website at www.hudbay.com. A corresponding PowerPoint presentation is available in the Investor Events section of our website and we encourage you to refer to it during this call. Our presenter today is Peter Kakilski, HUD-based President and Chief Executive Officer. Accompanying Peter for the Q&A portion of the call will be Eugene Lee, our Chief Financial Officer, and Andre Lauzon, our Chief Operating Officer. Please note that comments made on today's call may contain forward-looking information, and this information by its nature is subject to risks and uncertainties, and as such, actual results may differ materially from the views expressed today. For further information on these risks and uncertainties, please consult the company's relevant filings on CDAR Plus and EDGAR. These documents are also available on our website. As a reminder, all amounts discussed on today's call are in U.S. dollars and less otherwise noted. And now I'll pass the call over to Peter Kokilski.

Thank you, Candice. Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us in today's presentation. We'll be taking you through our many record achievements in the third quarter. touching on the operating and financial performance of the business and providing insight into recent strategic initiatives. In the third quarter, we delivered on our plan for significantly higher production, revenue, and cash flow, marking an inflection point as we generate strong returns from our recent brownfield and growth investments across the business. In Peru, operations delivered on plan with anticipated higher copper production and gold production driven by the higher grades at Pampacuncha following a period of higher stripping activities completed in the second quarter. This resulted in the mine's lowest quarterly cash costs on record. In Manitoba, mill recoveries increased meaningfully compared to the prior period as we optimized the circuits at the Stawell Mill and the New Britannia Mill. We saw higher gold and copper grades at the Lalor Mine, which led to strong gold production and lower cash costs during the quarter. We also successfully completed the Rockcliffe acquisition in September, which together with the acquisition of the Cook Lake claim significantly expands our land holding in the Snow Lake area to provide potential future feed sources for the store and New Britannia Mills. And in British Columbia, our Copper Mountain mine had its first full quarter of operations under the HUD Bay umbrella. Over the past few months, we've been focused on completing integration activities advancing our plans for ramping up the mining fleet and planning for mill stability and reliability improvement initiatives. With the strong operating performance in the third quarter, we have reaffirmed our 2023 full-year production and cost guidance for our Peru and Manitoba operations. We've also updated our consolidated 2023 guidance to incorporate Copper Mountain's contributions since the acquisition. As we enter this period of meaningful cash flow generation, We remain disciplined with capital spending and focused on advancing our deleveraging efforts. We have a resilient operating platform that will allow us to prudently advance and unlock value from our leading organic pipeline of brownfield expansion and greenfield exploration and development opportunities. The third quarter was an important milestone as it represents a step change in the diversified cash flows of the business. We nearly doubled our copper equivalent production in the third quarter compared to the second quarter, as shown on slide four. Copper represented 65% of our consolidated revenues in the quarter, with a total of approximately 42,000 tons of copper produced, a 93% increase from last quarter. Consolidated gold production was a record 101,000 ounces in the quarter, representing a 107% increase from the prior quarter. Similarly, silver and zinc production increased by 74% and 18% respectively compared to the prior quarter. The significant increase in production of all metals was driven by meaningfully higher recoveries in Peru and Manitoba, mining of the high copper and gold grade zones at the Pampacancha deposit, higher gold and copper grade zones at Lalor, and incremental production from copper mountain mines. The significant increase in production of all metals resulted in strong financial performance in the third quarter, as summarized on slide five. Consolidated cash costs for the quarter were $1.10 per pound, a meaningful improvement from the second quarter. This was a result of the strong copper and gold production in Peru and Manitoba, which more than offset the higher operating costs associated with now having three operations. Similarly, Sustaining cash costs decreased to $1.89 per pound in the quarter as the lower cash costs were only partially offset by higher levels of sustaining capital during the quarter. Both cash cost measures are expected to continue to be strong in the fourth quarter with higher expected copper production and continued strong contributions from precious metal byproduct credits. Consolidated all-in sustaining cash costs were $2.04 per pound in the third quarter and significantly lower than the second quarter. Third quarter operating cash flow before change in non-cash working capital was $182 million, and after deducting sustaining capital expenditures in cash lease and community payments, we generated over $110 million in free cash flow this quarter. The increase in cash flow was primarily the result of higher copper sales volumes in line with the higher production level seen this quarter. Revenue, earnings, and operating cash flow would have further benefited from the sale of approximately 20,000 ounces of consolidated gold production that was unsold at the end of the third quarter and is expected to be sold in the fourth quarter. Our available liquidity increased to $540 million this quarter as our cash position increased to $245 million, and we now have $294 million available under our revolving credit facilities. Moving to slide six, as I mentioned earlier, our Peru operations saw a meaningful increase in production from the first half of 2023, as we had planned. During the third quarter, the higher grades at Pampa Cancha resulted in 29,000 tons of copper produced and 41,000 ounces of gold produced. In addition to the higher grades this quarter, we also benefited from higher recoveries and higher throughput at our Constantia mill. Production levels in the fourth quarter are expected to continue to benefit from higher grades remaining on track to achieve our full year production guidance range. Total ore mined increased by 18% in the third quarter compared to the second quarter, in line with the mine plan. Ore mined from Pampacantia increased to about 6 million tons at an average grade of 0.53% copper and 0.3 grams per ton of gold. Ore milled was 9% higher this quarter because of a scheduled plant maintenance shutdown that occurred last quarter. Milled ore grades increased to 0.43% copper and 0.21 grams per ton of gold as expected. These higher recoveries were in line with our metallurgical models as recoveries benefited from the completion of the recovery uplift program in the second quarter as well as higher head grades and lower contaminants. Combined unit operating costs for the quarter were 13% lower than the second quarter due to lower milling costs and higher throughput. Peru's cash costs were at a record low of 83 cents compared to $2.14 per pound in the second quarter. This 61% improvement was a result of higher gold byproduct credits, high copper production, and lower milling costs. This solid performance and meaningful decline in cash costs is expected to continue to benefit from strong production in the fourth quarter, and we continue to expect our Peru operations to achieve the cash cost guidance range for 2023. Sustaining cash costs in Peru were $1.51 per pound in the third quarter, a 51% improvement from the prior quarter. Total annual sustaining capital expenditures in Peru are expected to be $10 million lower than the original 2023 guidance levels, primarily the result of lower capitalized stripping costs. Our Manitoba operations also saw strong production performance in the third quarter, as summarized on slide 7. Manitoba produced 56,000 ounces of gold, 3.6,000 tons of copper, 10,000 tons of zinc, and 265,000 ounces of silver. Gold production was 59% higher than the prior quarter as a result of mining higher-grade gold zones, higher recoveries at the New Britannia install mills, and the recovery of secondary gold products at New Britannia. Improvements completed at New Britannia late in the quarter were able to recover secondary gold products and ensure gold is reporting to DORE as designed. With the recent recovery improvements at the New Britannia install mills and higher grades from LALOR in the third quarter, the company expects to achieve full-year production guidance for all metals. As disclosed in our second quarter results, gold production is expected to trend towards the lower end of the guidance ranges, while copper and zinc production are expected to trend to the upper end of the guidance ranges. We continue to advance several key initiatives to support higher production levels, reduce dilution during the mining cycle, and continue to improve metal recoveries at the Snow Lake operations. At Lalor, we are enhancing the quality of ore production and minimizing dilution through improved blast designs, loading procedures, and effective grade control practices. At the Snow Lake mills, we completed changes to optimize the circuits, resulting in increased gold, copper, and silver recoveries. We are also exploring the potential to enhance the tailings deposition method at the Anderson facility with a transition from sub-aqueous to sub-aerial tailings storage. This could provide a more efficient use of impoundment space, address seasonal operational challenges, and defer capital expenditures for dam-raised construction to future years. Lawlock production averaged 4,000 tons per day during the third quarter, slightly lower than the prior quarter. However, we mined higher grades this quarter in all metals, with gold and copper grades roughly 25% higher than the second quarter. Store mill processed 7% more ore in the third quarter as we drew down base metal ore stockpile that had built up in the second quarter. After commissioning of the first phase of the store mill recovery improvement project in the second quarter, the third quarter was focused on optimizing circuits to achieve targeted recoveries by reducing primary ground size, refining the flotation circuit balance and mass pull, and reagent selection. These proved highly effective, resulting in notably higher recoveries for copper, gold, and silver, with the stall mill achieving its targeted gold recovery levels of approximately 68% in the third quarter compared to 60% gold recovery in the second quarter. The New Britannia mill consistently achieved elevated production, averaging 1,600 tons per day, despite processing significantly higher copper head grades that can impact throughput due to copper flotation limitations. We continue to advance the process debottlenecking initiatives at New Britannia as we pursue higher throughput targets to align with the increased gold ore production from LALOR. Combined units operating costs slightly decreased in the third quarter compared to the prior quarter, reflecting the higher mill throughput. Manitoba's gold cash costs were $670 per ounce, 39% lower than the second quarter due to higher gold production driven by improved grades and recoveries. Cash costs are expected to continue to benefit from increasing gold production from higher grade stopes and throughput increases at LALOR, as well as continued strong recoveries. As a result, we expect to achieve the 2023 guidance range for cash costs in Manitoba. Gold's sustaining cash costs were $939 per ounce, a decrease from the second quarter based on the same reasons affecting cash costs. Total annual sustaining capital expenditures in Manitoba are expected to be $15 million lower than the original 2023 guidance levels, primarily a result of lower capital development costs realized at LALOR as the team focuses on cost efficiencies. Slide 8 highlights the results from our first full quarter of owning the copper mountain mine. We produced 9.3 thousand tons of copper, 4.6 thousand ounces of gold, and 101,000 ounces of silver during the third quarter. Our efforts to stabilize the operation are underway. Total ore mined during the third quarter was 3.8 million tons, which was in line with our expectations. We commenced a fleet production ramp-up plan to capture the full value of existing idle capital equipment at the Copper Mountain site. Additionally, a new electric shovel was commissioned in September, which will reduce carbon intensity by displacing some of the existing diesel shovel production. The mill processed a total of 3.2 million tons of ore during the quarter, with the mill availability averaging 83.5%. The mill's copper grades were 0.36%, in line with our expectations for the quarter. Copper recoveries were 81% in the third quarter, an increase compared to 79% that was previously reported by Copper Mountain for the full year 2022. Mill throughput was impacted by excessive coarse material bypassing the comminution circuit and restricting flow through the tailings discharge line, causing high levels of unplanned downtime. This issue was rectified in August, and we continue to focus on increasing mill availability. Combined unit operating costs in BC were $24 Canadian dollars and 80 cents per ton milled. Combined unit operating costs per ton milled are expected to decrease over time as we execute the stabilization and optimization initiatives at Copper Mountain. BC cash costs were $2.67 per pound and sustaining cash costs were $3.39 per pound in the third quarter. These cash costs have improved compared to the full year 2022 cash costs previously reported by Copper Mountain. We've issued Copper Mountain 2023 production and cost guidance for the period since June the 20th. We expect to produce approximately 19.5,000 tons of copper at average cash costs of approximately $2.65 per pound based on the midpoint of the guidance range. The new Copper Mountain guidance has also been incorporated into our consolidated 2023 guidance ranges. the production and cash cost guidance ranges for our other business units has otherwise been reaffirmed and remains unchanged. We also expect capital expenditures at Copper Mountain to total approximately $35 million in 2023, including sustaining capital and capitalized stripping costs. Since the acquisition in June, we've been focused on advancing our plans to stabilize operations at Copper Mountain. As seen on slide 9, we've been able to realize annual corporate synergies of $9 million, and we're on track to exceed the $10 million target for corporate synergies. We are also on track to achieve the $20 million in targeted annual operational efficiencies to be achieved over the course of three years, as stated at the time of announcement. As I mentioned, we've commenced the fleet ramp-up plan in the mine, which entails a ramp-up from 14 trucks to 26 trucks by the end of the year. Once complete, we expect to see a more than 30% increase in tons moved in 2023 compared to 2022. We're also planning a campaign of accelerated stripping over the next two to three years to enable access to higher-grade ore and to mitigate the substantially reduced stripping undertaken by Copper Mountain over the four years prior to acquisition. Additionally, as part of our near-term stabilization plans, we'll be applying our mill efficiency initiatives from the Constantia Mill to the Copper Mountain Mill, in an effort to continue to improve concentrate quality and copper recoveries. The key focus area for us is the implementation of improved maintenance management systems as part of our focus on increasing mill availability. Further details on our stabilization plans will be provided in a new technical report, which is expected to be released in the fourth quarter, which will include an updated mine plan, annual production and cost estimates that reflect our stabilization and optimization initiatives, as well as updated mineral reserve and resource estimates. As we delivered on our plan for strong production growth and free cash flow generation in the third quarter, we remained disciplined with capital allocation and deleveraging activities. We achieved adjusted EBITDA of $191 million in the quarter, the highest quarterly level over the last five years, and a 135% increase from the second quarter. As mentioned earlier, we generated over $110 million of free cash flow in the quarter. A significant driver of this increase was a solid revenue generation from our diversified production base. While copper revenues increased by 62% quarter over quarter, our gold revenues similarly increased by 69% as a result of producing over 100,000 ounces this quarter. Copper remains our core metal of focus, But we enjoy the diversified revenue and cash flows our gold exposure offers, with gold prices typically having counter-cyclical benefits to copper. This gold diversification is an important aspect of our prudent financial strategy that helps to ensure consistent cash flow generation and uniquely positions us versus our peers. During the quarter, we reduced net debt to $1.13 billion dollars. The $58 million decline in net debt, together with higher levels of adjusted EBITDA in the quarter, improved our net debt to EBITDA ratio compared to the second quarter, thereby improving our credit facility availability. Subsequent to quarter end, we continued our deleveraging efforts with an additional $40 million repayment on our credit facilities, as well as a $5 million principal repayment on the Copper Mountain bonds. We also recommenced the deliveries under our gold pay prepay agreement to reduce the repayment liability. Additionally, we've been working towards delivering annual discretionary spending reductions with lower growth capital and exploration expenditures, which we're on track to achieve in 2023. Total capital expenditures for 2023 are now expected to be approximately $30 million lower than previous guidance levels, a further reduction from the $15 million of savings announced in the second quarter. This represents a 10% reduction in total capital expenditures. From today's comments, HUD-B is well positioned at an inflection point for continued cash flow generation, and we expect to continue to take prudent measures to position us to deliver our deleveraging targets. During the third quarter, we published the results from our pre-feasibility study on Phase 1 at Copperworld, which is summarized in slide 11. Phase one is a standalone operation requiring state and local permits only. Over the past 12 months, the team completed extensive technical work on phase one to produce this enhanced and de-risked phase one plan for Copper World. Phase one has a mine life of 20 years, which is four years longer than the phase one mine life that was presented in the preliminary economic assessment published in June of 2022. The phase one pre-feasibility study demonstrates attractive economics with a $1.1 billion net present value and a 19% internal rate of return using a $3.75 copper price. Phase one has a simplified project design as a traditional open pit truck and shovel operation with conventional flotation to produce copper concentrate and molybdenum concentrate. In the study, the processing facilities are expanded to include a concentrate leach facility in year five, producing copper cathode and silver gold dore. Phase one contemplates average annual copper production of 85,000 tons over the 20-year mine life at average cash costs of $1.47 and sustaining cash costs of $1.81 per pound of copper. A variable cutoff grade strategy allows for higher mill head grades in the first 10 years, which increases annual production to approximately 92,000 tons of copper at average cash costs and sustaining cash costs of $1.53 and $1.95 per pound of copper, respectively. Phase 1 has an anticipated initial growth capital expenditure of $1.3 billion. The project contributes meaningful annual EBITDA with $372 million on average over the mine life and more than $400 million on average over the first 10 years at a copper price of $3.75. With the pre-feasibility study, we updated the mineral resource estimates for the project, increasing the global measured and indicated mineral resources to 1.2 billion tons at 0.42% copper grades confirming the significant upside of Copper World with an intended phase two expansion of mining activities onto federal land to further enhance the project economics and extend the mine life well beyond 20 years. We expect to receive our two outstanding state permits in mid 2024. The opportunity to sanction Copper World is not expected until 2025 based on current estimated timelines. Moving to slide 12, We entered into a framework for a potential exploration partnership in Flin Flon with Maribene in July. This exploration partnership would allow us to couple our operational and exploration expertise with Maribene's balance sheet strength to test our large Flin Flon land package and potentially revive our dormant Flin Flon processing facilities. We've discovered and operated 29 mines in Hyde Bay's nearly 100-year history in Manitoba, and we have the potential to continue that success with this renewed focus on exploration in Flin Flon. We're also examining the potential to reprocess Flin Flon tailings, where in excess of 100 million tons of tailings have been deposited for over 90 years. We completed confirmatory drilling in 2022, which covered about two thirds of the facility and indicated higher zinc, copper and silver grades than predicted from historical mill records, while confirming the historical gold grade. We are advancing metallurgical test work and evaluating metallurgical technologies. This included the recent signing of a test working agreement with Cobalt Blue Holdings Limited to assess the processing viability of the flint-flon tailings using Cobalt Blue's proprietary processing technology that recovers copper, zinc, gold, and silver while converting sulfides into stable and benign sulfur. In the Snow Lake region, we continue to compile results from ongoing infill drilling at Lalor that will be incorporated in our next annual mineral resource and reserve estimates update in March 2024. Looking at slide 13, we also entered into agreements to significantly consolidate our land holdings in Snow Lake through several transactions, increasing our holdings by more than 250% in the region. We intend to explore these claims with the aim of finding a new anchor deposit to extend the life of HUD-based Snow Lake operations beyond 2038. One of these transactions was the completion of the Rockcliffe acquisition during the quarter. This not only expands our land holdings in the Snow Lake area, but it also consolidates HUD-based ownership of the Talbot copper gold deposit. This transaction has the potential to further extend mine life at our Snow Lake operations as well as offers us additional exploration properties to provide further optionality for future feed sources for our Stoll and New Britannia mills. We completed the acquisition of the Cook Lake properties from Glencore in late June. The Cook Lake properties are located within 10 kilometers of the Lalor mine and have the potential to host a new discovery at depth. We received data regarding approximately 60,000 meters of historical drilling that was completed over 10 years ago at a fraction of Larlo's current known depth. The mineralization indicates that there is a potential for new deposits on the same favorable mineralized horizons as many known deposits in the area, including the Larlo, 1901, and Chisel deposits. The Cook Lake properties are untested by modern deep geophysics, which was the discovery method for the Larlo mine. Concluding on slide 14, We believe that copper has the best long-term supply-demand fundamentals in the sector, as global copper mine supply will be unable to meet demand from global decarbonization initiatives. HUD-Bay is uniquely positioned to benefit from the strong outlook for copper with attractive copper production growth and significant long-term optionality for investors through our leading organic growth pipeline. HUD-Bay offers meaningful copper production at first-quartile cash costs. We delivered on our plan for higher copper production and lower cash costs in the third quarter, and we provide the highest near-term free cash flow yields versus peers. Our gold diversification is part of this unique positioning, while also offering counter-cyclical benefits. And lastly, we have significant long-term upside through our leading copper growth pipeline, offering the highest net asset value sensitivity to copper prices in our peer group. And with that, we're pleased to take your questions.