Copper Mountain Mining Corporation

Next time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Copper Mountain Mining Corporation First Quarter 2023 Earnings Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to avoid any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star, then the number 1 on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star 2. Please note that comments made today that are not of a historical or factual nature may contain forelooking statements. This information by its nature is subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause a stated outcome to differ materially from actual outcomes. Please refer to slide 2 of today's presentation and Copper Mountains First Quarter 2023 Management's discussion and analysis for more information. I will now turn the call over to Gil Cawson, President and CEO of Copper Mountains.

Good morning, everyone, and thanks for joining us. Starting on slide three, presenting with me today are Don Strickland, our Chief Operating Officer, and Letitia Wong, our Chief Financial Officer. I'll kick off with a summary of our first quarter. Don will provide a more detailed discussion on our operating results, and Letitia will then present an overview of our financial performance and also give a recap on our recent announcement regarding our transaction with HUD-BAY. Turning to slide four, we are very encouraged to see our operating performance this last quarter. We started the year on our back foot, actually, withstanding a ransomware attack, but we still ended up having a strong operational performance over the quarter with about 16 million pounds of copper produced at cash costs of 311. and all-in costs of 366 US per pound. This was our highest production and lowest all-in cost quarter since 2021, which was a record year for our company. Turning to slide five, with our first quarter performance in line with our plan, we remain on track to achieve our 2023 production guidance of between 88 to 98 million pounds of copper at all-in costs between $2.45 U.S. to $2.95 U.S. per pound. As we said on our last call, we see production increasing sequentially through the first three quarters of the year with improving grade and throughput. Recovery is expected to improve markedly as the mill and concentrator have been operating without on-stream analysis of the process flows. without the expert system and the full utilization of the rougher expansion. And that was due to impacts from the ransomware attack, which prompted us to have to rebuild those systems. And that's all now been resolved. We also completed our bond buyback during the quarter, meaningfully reducing the company's outstanding debt. Earlier this month, we announced an exciting and transformative combination with HudBay. We believe the strategic rationale is very compelling. The combined company will have a strong, diversified portfolio of three long-life assets and a leading organic growth pipeline. We see exceptional upside and potential for significant value to be unlocked with this transaction, and Letitia will continue speak more about this in just a moment, but before that, I'll hand the call over now to Don to review our operational results in more detail.

Thanks, Gil.