Ero Copper Corp.

Standing by, this is the conference operator. Welcome to the AeroCopper First Quarter 2024 Operating and Financial Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then 1 on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference, you may signal an operator by pressing star, then zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Courtney Lind, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development, Investor Relations, and Sustainability.

Please go ahead. Thank you, Operator. Good morning, and welcome to Arrow Copper's first quarter earnings call. Our operating and financial results were released yesterday afternoon and are available on our website, as are our financial statements and MD&A for the three months ended March 31st, 2024. On the call with me today are David Strang, Arrow's co-founder and chief executive officer, Marco DiFilippo, president and chief operating officer, and Wayne Dreyer, chief financial officer. We will be making forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties from which actual results may differ materially. We would refer you to our most recent annual information forum, available on our website, CDAR and EDGAR, for discussion of the risk factors of our business and their potential impact on future performance. As a reminder, and unless otherwise noted, all amounts are in U.S. dollars. I will now pass the call over to David Strang.

Thank you, Courtney, and thank you everyone for joining us today. We've had a great start to 2024, driven by the strong execution of our growth strategy, coinciding with highly favorable market conditions for copper and gold. During the quarter, copper prices rallied to their highest levels in nearly two years, fueled by rising demand expectations, while the supply outlook remains extremely constrained. as evidenced by our recent treatment and refining charge negotiations, where we locked in two-year TCRC terms in the low teens on roughly a third of our projected concentrate production. At the same time, due to macro and geopolitical uncertainty, gold prices hit all-time highs. These positive trends in both copper and gold markets arrive at an opportune time as we are on track to reach our highest annual production levels ever. This includes anticipated contributions from the Tukama project, which is now approximately 97% complete. I'm also happy to share that commissioning at Tukama is advancing ahead of schedule, and as a result, we are narrowing our projected timeline for initial production to early Q3 24. While Mako will delve into more detail on our progress at Tukama, I want to express my deepest gratitude to our team on the ground. which just marked over 5 million hours of work completed with zero lost time injuries. This is an incredible achievement, and I commend our leadership team at Tukamak for the strong safety culture built over the past two years. As we rapidly approach an important inflection point in our consolidated copper production profile, I'm also pleased to report that our Gervantino operations are on track to deliver record gold production again this year. In fact, during the first quarter, we produced 18,234 ounces, representing an increase of nearly 5,800 ounces, or approximately 47%, compared to the first quarter of 2023. This increase is attributable to the successful completion of the NX-60 growth initiative last year, as well as higher than expected gold grades, which averaged over 16 grams per ton during the period. This performance also resulted in unit operating costs for the quarter that were below our full-year guidance. More specifically, C1 cash costs averaged $395 per ounce in the quarter versus our 2024 guidance range of $550 to $650 per ounce. And all-in sustaining costs per ounce averaged $797 versus the full-year range of $1,050 to to $1,150 per ounce. Given the continuation of positive grade reconciliations and additional visibility into mineable grades for the remainder of the quarter from in-ore development channel samples, we are raising our 2024 goal production guidance from 55 to 60,000 ounces to a range of 60 to 65,000 ounces. Consequently, we are guiding to the low end of our full-year gold C1 cash cost and all-in sustaining cost guidance. With gold prices continuing to hit all-time highs, we are well-positioned to deliver record operating margins and cash flows at Gervantino this year. At our Carriba operations, our performance during the quarter was largely in line with our expectations. From a strategic execution standpoint, we made good progress at the new external shaft, where we remain unscheduled to reach a projected depth of approximately 600 meters by year-end. Upon our anticipated project completion at the end of 2026, this shaft is expected to reach a depth of over 1.5 kilometers, making it the second deepest shaft in South America. From an operational standpoint, we started to see the positive impact of the recently completed Cariba mill expansion during the quarter, with tons processed up over 5% compared to Q4 at approximately 853,000 tons. This increase in mill throughput partially offset a planned decrease in mined and processed copper grades that was compounded by delays in underground development during the period. As a result, a higher portion of oil was mined from lower-grade stoves than planned, resulting in average processed copper grades of 1.08% and production of 8,091 tons after recoveries of approximately 88%. At the same time, we benefited from the sale of copper concentrate inventories carried over from the fourth quarter, resulting in copper tons sold being nearly 1,400 tons higher than tons produced during the quarter. With respect to full-year production, we are reaffirming our guidance range of 42,000 to 47,000 tons, with production expected to be weighted towards the second half of the year. Conversely, our copper C1 cash costs, which average $2.30 per pound produced during the quarter, are expected to decrease throughout the year due to projected sequential increases in copper grades and production over the next three quarters. As a result, we are reaffirming our full-year cost guidance at Caraiba of $1.80 to $2 per pound. It is worth noting that there is potential for unit costs to improve further as we continue to lock in more favorable concentrate treatment and refining charges than we had assumed in our guidance. Before I pass the call to Mako for a deeper dive into project execution, I will share a few highlights of our first quarter financial performance. As mentioned, we experienced a fortunate culmination of high copper and gold prices, record production operating margins at Chalantina, and the sale of copper concentrate inventories carried over from the last year at Canaiba. Collectively, these factors drove solid first quarter cash flow from operations of $17.2 million and adjusted EBITDA of $43.3 million. I'll now hand the call over to Mako, after which Wayne will provide more detail on our first quarter financial results.