Capstone Copper Corp.

Good morning, my name is Kelsey and I will be your conference operator for today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Capstone Mining Q3 2021 Financial Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noises. 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 and then the number one in your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, please press star, then the number two. Thank you. Mr. Annette, you may begin your conference.

Thank you. Good afternoon. I'd like to welcome everyone on the call today. Please note that the news release and regulatory filings announcing Capstone's 2021 third quarter financial and operational results are available on our website and on CDAR. If you are logged into the webcast, we will be advancing the slides of today's presentation, which is also available in the Investors section of our website. I'm joined today by our President and CEO, Darren Pilot, our Chief Financial Officer, Raman Randhawa, our Chief Operating Officer, Brad Mercer, and our Senior Vice President, Risk, ESG, and General Counsel, Wendy King. Following our brief remarks, there will be an opportunity for questions. Please note that comments made on the call today will contain forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. This information by its nature is subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from the views expressed today. For further information on the risks and uncertainties pertaining to our business, please see Capstone's most recent filings, which are available on our website and on CDAR. And finally, I'll just note that all amounts we will discuss today are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise specified. Now I'll turn the call over to Darren Pilot.

Thank you, Gerald, and good morning, everybody. I'd like to start today by acknowledging the outstanding work of our Pinto Valley team that has done to mitigate the effects of extreme weather during the third quarter and the support they have provided to local authorities and the nearby communities of Globe and Miami. As our title slide shows, we are strengthening communities by building resilient operations around us, which is vital for our long-term success. The wildfires in June that we discussed in our previous conference call burned large extensions of wild terrain close to Pinto Valley, leaving scarred areas of compacted and impenetrable soil. This was followed in July and August by record monsoon rains that caused severe floods and mudslides in the nearby communities of Globe and Miami. Our Pinto Valley team worked with the local authorities and actively participated in remediation efforts to help control the damage. They went above and beyond by restoring vulnerable areas in the Tonto National Forest to prevent future emergencies. And I want to commend them because they invested their own time and effort to support their communities while managing to complete the PV3 expansion project and delivering a solid quarter at Pinot Valley despite these disruptions. We are committed to climate change action and sustainability, and ESG are strategic for our long-term business plans. Wendy will discuss later in the call how we continue advancing our sustainability programs to thrive and achieve our objectives. Turning now to slide number six, We had a solid third quarter with consolidated copper production of 44.4 million pounds at cash costs of $1.96 per payable pound, thanks to another record production quarter at Cozumel, where we continue reaping the benefits of the mine expansion that has allowed us to push daily throughput in the mill to record levels. The mine produced 14.1 million pounds of copper at cash costs of 93 cents per payable pound of copper. Overall, Pinto Valley had a solid quarter considering the challenging weather conditions they faced and produced 30.3 million pounds of copper at cash costs of $2.44 per payable pound. Productivity and costs were impacted in the first half of the quarter when severe monsoon rains caused wet conditions, which decreased mining and milling rates. Many of our workers had to deal with evacuation, and road closures in and around our neighboring communities, which led to high absenteeism. However, our team recovered quickly, and by mid-August, we were back at target milling rates. And then from September to now, we have averaged over 60,000 tons per day, as the PV3 optimization work is now complete, and we are benefiting from that investment. And all the maintenance work as well we performed in Q2 and Q3. So year to date, we've produced over 135 million pounds of copper at cash costs of $1.85 per payable pound, which means we're well on track to meet our annual guidance of between 175 and 190 million pounds of copper at cash costs of between $1.75 and $1.90 per payable pound. Moving on to slide number seven. In the first nine months of this year, we have generated a record operating cash flow number of $272 million. And that's more than any other full 12-month period in Capstone's operating history. With Q4 expected to be our strongest operational quarter and with the current copper price well above $4 a pound, we should finish the year on a strong note. This cash generation puts us in a great position to execute our internal growth projects at Pinto Valley in Cozumel and also to advance the Santo Domingo project in Chile. On slide eight, in Q3, we continued building our cash position and finished September with $208 million in cash and short-term investments. This is $36.7 million increase over the previous quarter. We generated adjusted net income of 35.3 million or nine cents per share. and our operating cash flow before changes in working capital was 67 million during this quarter. Now I'll turn it over to Raman for more details on these financial measures.