Teck Resources Ltd

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to TEC's second quarter 2023 earnings release conference call. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and 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 0. This conference's call is being recorded on Thursday, July 27th, 2023. I would now like to turn the conference over to Fraser Phillips, Senior Vice President, Investor Relations and Strategic Analysis. Please go ahead.

Thanks, Gaylene. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us for Tech's second quarter 2023 conference call. Please note, today's call contains forward-looking statements. Various risks and uncertainties may cause actual results to vary. The Act does not assume the obligation to update any forward-looking statements. Please refer to slide two 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 highlights from our second quarter results. Crystal Prestai, our CFO, will follow with additional color on the quarter. And then Jonathan will conclude the call today with an update on our copper growth strategy. And of course, we will then open the lines to questions. With that, I'll turn the call over to Jonathan.

Thank you, Fraser, and good morning, everyone. Now, before we get into the second quarter results, I'd like to begin by taking a moment to say that we are deeply saddened by the fatality that occurred in May 2023 at our Croblada Blanca operations. Health and safety is a core value at Tech, and we are focused on our goal of every single person going home to their families safe and healthy each and every day. We undertook a thorough investigation and learnings from the investigation are being shared across tech and with our industry peers to help prevent future incidents. So moving now to the highlights for the second quarter on slide four. Overall, we maintain positive momentum through the second quarter with achievements across all four pillars of our value creation strategy. First, we made significant investments in copper growth. We achieved a major milestone at QB2 with the first sale of copper concentrate, and we are advancing ramp up towards full production rates later this year. We also continue to progress our copper growth pipeline. We achieved another major milestone with the receipt of regulatory approval from the Peruvian Environmental Authority for our Zafranal project. The team did a fantastic job throughout the process, and we are very pleased to have the permit in hand. And for San Nicolas in Mexico, we closed the joint venture transaction with Agnico Eagle in the quarter and the new project management team finalized the EIA permit application in June. Second, our continued focus on execution and our operations drove strong financial performance. We generated $1.5 billion in adjusted EBITDA and ended the quarter with $7 billion of liquidity. Third, Our strong financial performance enabled us to return cash to shareholders while continuing to strengthen our balance sheet. We paid our quarterly base dividend, repurchased $85 million of Class B shares through the NCIB, and repaid the first biannual installment on the QB2 project finance facility. And finally, we advanced our governance and sustainability initiatives. We made a step change in the advancement of our governance structure with the completion of the plan of arrangement to implement the sunset of the multiple voting rights attached to the Class A common shares. We also marked the one year anniversary of tech becoming the first mining company globally to commit to the goal of becoming nature positive by 2030 with a $10 million donation to the Chilean Nature Fund. This will help protect a critical global biodiversity area. Since the launch of our nature positive program, I am particularly proud that tech has helped conserve over 51,500 hectares, which is equivalent to four and a half times the size of the city of Vancouver. Further, we are pleased that Trail became the first standalone zinc processing site globally to be awarded the zinc mark, based on 32 responsible production criteria, including GHG emissions, community health, and respect for indigenous people's rights. And we were honored to be named one of Corporate Night's Best Corporate Citizens in Canada for the 17th consecutive year. And looking at our progress at QB2 on slide five, as noted earlier, we achieved a major milestone at QB2 with the first shipment and sale of copper concentrate in the second quarter. Line one is operating well as per expectations, and line two is now in commissioning. The concentrate pipeline, concentrate filter plant and storage systems at the port are now in operation. Due to delays in construction and commissioning, we have updated our QB2 2023 production guidance to 80,000 to 100,000 tons, but continue to expect to be operating at full production rates by the end of the year. So total QB 2023 production guidance has been revised to 90 to 110,000 tons, which includes 10,000 tons of cathode. Our project capital cost guidance of 8 to 8.2 billion US dollars remains unchanged. And with that, I will hand it over to Crystal for additional color on the quarter.