Hecla Mining Company

Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us and welcome to the Q2 2026 Hekla Mining Company earnings conference call. After today's prepared remarks, we will host a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question. Please press star 1 to raise your hand. To withdraw your question, please press star 1 again. I will now hand the conference over to Mike Parkin, Vice President of Strategy and Investor Relations. Mike, please go ahead.

Thanks, Hillary. Good morning, and thank you all for joining us for HECLA's second quarter 2026 results conference call. I'm Mike Parkin, Vice President of Strategy and Investor Relations. Our earnings release that was issued yesterday along with today's presentation are available on our website. On the call with us today is Rob Krcmarov, President and Chief Executive Officer, Russell Lawler, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, Carlos Aguiar, Senior Vice President and Chief Operations Officer, Brian Erickson, Vice President of Operations, Kurt Allen, Vice President of Exploration, along with other members of our management team. At the conclusion of our prepared remarks, we will be available to answer any questions you might have. Turning to slide two, any forward-looking statements made today by the management team come under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act and involve risks as shown on this slide in our earnings release and in our 10-Q filing with the SEC. These and other risks could cause results to differ from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Non-GAAP measures cited in this call and related slides are reconciled in the slides or news release. Please note, as we discuss financial figures and projections throughout this presentation and in the earnings release, we are referring to our continuing operations. I will now pass the call over to Rob.

Thank you, Mike, and good morning, everyone. Turning to slide three. ECLA enters the third quarter of 2026 from a position of real strength. and I'm speaking to financial strength, a position today that marks the strongest balance sheet in the company's very long history. And the attributes shown on this slide that define us as North America's premier silver producer, they haven't changed. What has changed though is that we have confidence with which we can now invest in what comes next. So I'm eager to have our teams discuss some remarkable developments that are coming out of our substantial project pipeline, which further solidifies our market positioning. More on that in a minute. Turning to slide four. This was another very strong quarter for Heckler, even though a couple of headline numbers moved in a different direction than last quarter. And I want to spend a moment walking through why, because I think the underlying story here is a good one. Revenue from continuing operations was $334 million compared to the record $411 million we reported in the first quarter. Two things are driving that change and it's worth being clear about both because neither of them is a production problem. First, metal prices pulled back from the highs we saw earlier in the year, although I do remain confident in the outlook for silver and gold prices. And second, part of the gap was simply timing. A meaningful amount of silver concentrate, mostly at Greens Creek, was produced but not yet sold as of quarter end. Had that concentrate shipped within the quarter, revenue would have been noticeably higher on top of an already strong quarter. That inventory shipped in early August and you're going to see it show up in our third quarter results. Those of you who have followed us for some time know the lumpy sales pattern at Greens Creek. The adjusted EBITDA from continuing operations was $199 million. More than double the $94 million we generated a year ago. Operating cash flow was $175 million and free cash flow was $136 million. Our second best quarter on record and very close to the record $144 million we posted last quarter. Every single one of our mines generated free cash flow again this quarter with Greens Creek and Lucky Friday each setting new site level quarterly free cash flow records at $130 million and $88 million respectively. Our balance sheet is simply the best it's been in our long history. We ended the quarter with $483 million in cash, no long-term debt outside of capital leases, and an essentially fully undrawn $225 million revolving credit facility with a $75 million accordion. A balance sheet this strong gives us real optionality, the flexibility to keep investing in the projects and the assets that make the most sense for this business on our own timeline rather than being dictated to by our balance sheet. On the operating side, we produced 4.2 million ounces of silver, up 8% from the prior quarter, and Lucky Friday delivered new quarterly production record of 1.5 million ounces of silver. And I'm especially pleased with our safety performance. Our Consolidated Total Recordable Injury Frequency Rate, or TRIFA for short, improved to 1.57, and that's a meaningful improvement from the 2.07 reported for the first quarter. That's the kind of improvement that reflects real deliberate commitment by our teams. And frankly, it matters more to me than any financial metric on this slide. We also conducted our annual safety day in early June with senior leadership visiting every site to reinforce safe working practices. So turning to slide five. A medium term pathway to 20 plus million ounce silver producer is advancing and it's anchored by the Keno Hill ramp up and a potential Midas restart. with further potential upside from Keno Hill expansion and from Aurora and Hollister in later years. And near return, we've got two organic opportunities at Greens Creek that I'm really excited to give you more detail on today. Both are the kind of high return, low capital intensity projects that we look for. Our bar for any of these organic investments is a return on invested capital that clears our cost of capital by a healthy margin and early work on both suggests that they can. I'll turn it over to Brian now to walk you through those. Brian, over to you.