Vale S.A.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Vale's conference call to discuss the second quarter 2022 results. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session and instructions will be given at the time. This call is being simultaneously translated to Portuguese. If you should require assistance during the call, please press the star followed by zero. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded and the recording will be available on the company's website at vale.com at InvestorsLink. This conference call is accompanied by a slide presentation, also available at InvestorsLink at the company's website and is transmitted via internet as well. The broadcasting via internet, both the audio and the slide chains, has a few seconds delay in relation to the audio transmitted via phone. Before proceeding, let me mention the forward-looking statements are being made under the safe harbor of the Security Litigation Reform Act of 1996. Actual performance could differ materially from that anticipated in any forward-looking comments as a result of macroeconomic conditions, market risks and other factors. With us today are Mr. Eduardo de Sales Bartolomeu, Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Gustavo Pimenta, Executive Vice President, Finance and Investor Relations, Mr. Marcelo Spinelli, Executive Vice President, IRR, Mrs. Dashni Naidoo, Executive Vice President, Base Metals. First, Mr. Eduardo Bartolomeu will proceed to the presentation on Vale's second quarter 2022 performance. And after that, he'll be available for questions and answers. It's now my pleasure to turn the call over to Mr. Eduardo Bartolomeu. Sir, you may now begin.

Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. I hope you are all well. We just celebrated 80 years operating in Brazil. It was an opportunity to reflect on our journey, challenge, and evolution to build a better Vale. As you know, we remain focused on rewriting Vale by de-risking and reshaping our company. Let me guide you through our main accomplishments since the end of the first quarter. We remain firmly committed to the Brumadinho reparation. We disbursed close to $320 million in the second quarter under agreements and donations. In the environmental front, we are now detailing the sanitation projects to the affected communities. In the compensation of individual damage New indemnification agreements have been reducing as the deadline for extra legal claims closed in January 2022 for most territories. Since 2019, we have indemnified more than 13,000 people, totaling around R$ 3.1 billion. On dam safety, We concluded the de-characterization of two of the five upstream dam structures to be eliminated in 2022. I will give you more details on that. Finally, on the reshaping this month, we completed the sale of our Midwestern system. We also signed a binding agreement with ArcelorMittal for the sale of CSP, our steel joint venture in the CRI state. To give you a full perspective of how much we progressed since 2019, we sold nine businesses in five different countries that, in their worst moments, cost us up to $2 billion in a year of cash drain. We remain committed to making Vale a safer and more reliable company, supported by robust cash generation and disciplined capital allocation. Part of our social ambition involves strengthening relations with communities neighboring our operations. This month, we celebrated 40 years of relationship between Vale and the Xicrín do Cateté indigenous people in the state of Pará. The Xicrín's people supported Vale's professionals when we started exploring Carajás. Their lands are close to Vale's conservation units in the Amazon, and we have also helped to protect their indigenous territory. Still, our relationship with the Xicrín had controversies. We have now begun a new stage in this relationship. After 18 months of negotiations, we closed an agreement with the Xicrín community, ending a 15 years dispute. To honor our relationship, we visited the village of the Xicrín and it was a moment of mutual respect and trust. I want to thank the Xicrin people for welcoming us in their home. It's also important to emphasize that Vale does not carry out any mineral research or mining activities on indigenous lands in Brazil. We also believe that all activities that may directly interfere in these territories must strictly respect free, prior and informed consent. A key measure to the risk valley is our program to eliminate upstream dams in Brazil, and we advanced with important milestones. In July, we concluded the de-characterization of two structures, Baixo João Pereira Dam and Dig 4, were the first ones of the five dams to be eliminated this year. Since 2019, we have eliminated nine structures. and by the end of 2022, we will eliminate three more, reaching 40% of the program. The projects are complex and in some cases, pioneering. This is the case of B3 before them, currently at Emergency Level 3. Using only remotely operated equipment, we have already removed close to 40% of the tailings, much faster than our plan. This led us to anticipate these conclusions to 2025. By then, We expect Bali to have no dam under critical safety conditions. We had an operationally challenging second quarter, which made us revise our iron ore and copper guidance for the year. In iron ore, while our systems in the south had a solid performance, in the northern system we were impacted by one-off moisture issues and the ongoing restrictions in licensing. Spinelli will talk more about that. In basic metals, essential maintenance works affected nickel and copper operations, and Dashny will give you more details. In our climate change agenda, we reached important milestones towards meeting our targets. As part of our PowerSheet program, we received our second 100% electric locomotive. It will initially operate at the Ponta de Madeira port. In April, we signed an MOU with Nippel Steel Corporation to pursue iron-making solutions, including the usage of green briquettes. This is in line with our commitment to reducing 15% of NET Scope 3 emissions by 2025. Since 2021, we engaged with clients representing almost 50% of our scope 3 emissions. In portfolio optimization, we have progressed with those two divestments that I have already mentioned. Finally, in capital allocation, we remain committed to returning cash to our shareholders, and I will give you more details in the next slide. Yesterday, we announced the distribution of $3 billion in dividends in line with our policy. Last quarter, we announced the third buyback program for up to 500 million shares. We executed close to 22% of this program in a little more than two months. After the completion of the third buyback program, we will have repurchased almost 20% of the company's outstanding shares. This means that we are concentrating future earnings on a per share basis by 25%. We view this as a form of growth without pressure in the supply side and carrying a lower execution risk. Now, I turn the floor over to our Vice President of Base Metals, Dashni, for her remarks. Thank you, and I'll get back to you in the Q&A.

Thank you, Eduardo, and good morning, everyone. I'd like to start this call by highlighting that our Sudbury mines that were impacted by the strike last year and our shaft incident at Totten Mine and that have been in ramp up since quarter four are now running as planned. That said, in the quarter, our overall base metals production was impacted by major maintenance works, both planned and unplanned. Most of the planned maintenance related to the backlog we are catching up on following the two years of deferrals as a result of the COVID-19 endemic restrictions and controls. In nickel, we had planned major maintenance at our refineries and smelters, Across Canada, the UK and Indonesia. And our sales for the quarter were covered by inventories we built in quarter one in anticipation of this. In copper, we completed the extended major maintenance at Sesego. This was originally planned for 45 days, but extended to replace other key components to mitigate future operations risk. The plant is now operating at required run rates. At Salobo, additional plant maintenance work was performed during the quarter, with additional preventative maintenance being scheduled in the second half to address poorer-than-expected acid conditions discovered after key maintenance activities performed in the quarter. This can also be attributed to the maintenance deferrals during the COVID-19 restrictions. It is for these reasons we have revised our copper guidance to the 270 to 285,000 tons. I would like to mention, however, that maintenance works at Solobo 1 and Solobo 2 plants do not change the plans for Solobo 3, which is still scheduled for commissioning by the end of this year. For quarter three, we continue with our planned major mine and mold Next slide. Looking at our financial performance in particular price, you will see that despite relatively flat sales volumes quarter over quarter, our price realization lagged market, especially in copper. As you can see in the graph in the left side, copper price realization was largely impacted by provisional pricing as a result of the copper forward curve price falling in the quarter. By the end of quarter one, we had some 44,000 tons of copper marked at $10,400 per ton. At the end of quarter two, we had just under 32,000 tons of copper marked at $8,300 per ton. This represents a negative effect of about $3,000 per ton of copper. In nickel, we had a positive balance of premium from product mix with a strong price realization achieved for our class one products and a positive effect from our quotational period. The nickel price lag was primarily due to fixed pricing, specifically our hedging program. In the first quarter, we started the implementation of the nickel revenue hedging program for 2023. While the nickel realized price for the second quarter was impacted by the strike price of circa $20,200 per ton, which reflected in the quarter's results. The average price for the complete hedge position was increased from circa $21,400 to just over $23,000 per ton, reflecting the higher price fixed for the new positions added on quarter two. Now let's turn to the future. This quarter, we have made good progress in our strategic agenda. We concluded the feasibility study for a proposed nickel sulfate project in Quebec with an expected annual production of 25,000 tons of contained nickel to produce over 110,000 tons of nickel sulfate. This offers us both diversified sales and an accelerated entry point into North America's burgeoning Electric Vehicle Supply Chain, as we are seeing from the growing demand of battery production across the continent. Also, we've continued to advance our agenda in Indonesia. We have just approved at our board meeting the development of the Biodopi project in Indonesia. Together with TISCO and Zinghai, we expect to start up the 73,000 ton ferro-nickel facility in 2025. and in line with our overall EV strategy, we have signed last week two key MOUs with Ford. One for a three-way partnership with PTVI and YU in the Pomela project in Indonesia and the other to explore opportunities with Vale across the EV value chain. This adds the previously announced MOU with Tesla. We look forward to working with these like-minded partners who are ESG-focused to supply low-carbon nickel into the EV market. I now hand over to Marcelo to take us through the I&O performance.