Teck Resources Ltd

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to Tech's first quarter 2023 earnings release conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-answer session. To join the question queue, press star, then 1 on your touchtone phone. Should anyone need assistance during the conference call, they may signal an operator by pressing star, then zero on their telephone. This conference call is being recorded on Wednesday, April 26, 2023. I would now like to turn the conference call over to Fraser Phillips, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Strategic Analyst. Please go ahead.

Thanks Charisse. Good morning everyone and thanks for joining us this morning for our quarterly conference call. Please note today's call contains forward-looking statements. Various risks and uncertainties may cause actual results to vary. Tech does not assume the obligation to update any forward-looking statements. Please refer to slide 2 for the assumptions underlying our forward-looking statements. In addition, we will reference various non-GAAP measures throughout this call Explanations and reconciliations regarding these measures can be found in our MD&A and the latest press release on our website. Jonathan Price, our CEO, will begin today's call with some comments on this morning's announcement. Crystal Prestai, our CFO, will follow with our first quarter 2023 results and will conclude the call with a question and answer period. With that, I will turn the call over to you, Jonathan.

Thank you, Fraser, and good morning, everyone. Before we get into the Q1 results, I want to start by speaking to our announcement this morning that we have withdrawn the separation proposal that was to be considered by shareholders at our annual and special meeting today. That proposal was the result of a detailed process undertaken by a special committee of the Board to review all the options and identify the best path forward for our shareholders and company. From the outset, we've been clear that the focus of that work by our board, our senior management team, and myself was maximizing value for our shareholders. And that work firmly identified that separating base metals and steelmaking coal was the best way to achieve that goal. There is no doubt in my mind, or the minds of our board and management team, that there is greater value and optionality in having a standalone, pure play metals business separate from the steelmaking coal business. And we are confident from our discussions with shareholders that a substantial majority of shareholders support the strategy of separating tech metals and EVR. At the same time, we've also heard very clearly that some shareholders would prefer a more direct approach for that separation. So our plan going forward is to evaluate alternatives for a responsible separation of our businesses taking into account the feedback we've received. Our goal will be to pursue a simpler and more direct separation, which is the best path to unlock the full value of tech for shareholders. My job is about responsibly creating value for our shareholders and all stakeholders. We drive intrinsic value organically through the development of best-in-class projects and executing on our growth strategy. There is real value in being a good actor with good business practices, and the approach to doing business has made tech a partner of choice, minimizing disruptions to our operations and creating opportunities for our business and our stakeholders. Tech is a fantastic company with a strong future. We have the right assets, the right partners, and the right people to capture the opportunities created by the energy transition, which we are well positioned to realize in the near term. and we have a number of near-term value creation milestones ahead of us. Those include the ramp-up of our flagship QB2 copper project. Demonstrating QB2's ability to operate consistently to plan is a key area of focus for us and a major value inflection point. Importantly, even beyond QB2, we have a portfolio of high-quality cornerstone assets in stable mining jurisdictions as well as a number of copper growth projects in our portfolio. And this is a copper growth pipeline that is the envy of the industry and in an advanced state of readiness thanks to years of strategic and deliberate pre-investment. We will be in a position to double copper production in the near term and double it again by the end of the decade. At the same time, our steelmaking coal business is best in class, underpinned by an extensive reserve base with high margins. and it will be positioned to capitalize on the developing global supply gap from existing mine depletion and lack of new projects coming into production. Long-term shareholder value can be created in a variety of ways, and today we are focused on a three-pronged approach to value creation. Firstly, through a separation of tech resources to unlock the value of an exceptional high-growth base metals business. Secondly, through the development of our portfolio of copper projects to create substantial new intrinsic value. Thirdly, and all the while, retaining our focus on strong cash returns to our shareholders. Beyond this focused approach, M&A can also play a role in creating value when done at the right price with the right partner at the right time. We have premium businesses, and when it comes to M&A, we firmly believe that competition for assets drives value. In M&A, you have to carefully evaluate both risk to value and timing of value. It is important to understand the consideration you would receive and the timing of when you would receive it. All of these factors inform our thinking as to how and when tech should contemplate a transaction with anyone. Management and the board take their duties incredibly seriously. but will not engage on something that is a distraction from our mandate to create the greatest value with the greatest certainty for our shareholders. I want to emphasize that we have greatly appreciated the engagement that we have had with our shareholders leading up to today and the very strong support shown for the goal of separation to unlock value. And we look forward to working to execute on a separation approach that reflects their considered feedback and ensure we maximize the value and opportunity it creates for all of our stakeholders. So thank you, and with that, I will turn it over to Crystal to discuss our Q1 results.