Ero Copper Corp.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the EuroCOPR third 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 ask a question, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star then zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Courtney Lynn, Senior Vice President of Corporate Development, Investor Relations and Sustainability. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator. Good morning and welcome to AeroCopper's third 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 and nine months ended September 30th, 2024. On the call with me today are David Strang, ERO'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 form, available on our website, CDAR and EDGAR, for a 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. We appreciate that this is a busy week, especially with the news surrounding the US presidential election. So thank you all for taking the time to join us today. Before diving into our third quarter results, I want to take a moment to discuss the leadership succession announcement we made yesterday. This transition is something we've been thoughtfully planning over the last two years, beginning with Noel's decision to step down as executive chairman in January of 2023. Noel's contributions have been instrumental in shaping Eero Copper from its early stages into the successful high growth copper producer we are today. And I am immensely grateful to have him taking this unimaginable journey with him over the past eight years. As I step into the role of executive chairman, I'm excited about what lies ahead for Eero. I remain fully committed to our long term success and look forward to continue to support our growth in this new capacity. With Mako assuming day-to-day leadership of Eero as President and CEO, we are in incredibly capable hands. Mako has demonstrated exceptional leadership as our Chief Operating Officer, championing safety, advancing our strategic growth initiatives, including the successful construction of Tokuma, and strengthening our culture of accountability. I have absolute confidence in his ability to lead Eero into this next chapter. I am also pleased that MACA will have the full support of Gelson Batista, who joined us in September in anticipation of this transition. Gelson brings a wealth of experience from his 25 years in the mining industry, most recently serving as Chief Operating Officer of ArcelorMittal's Mining Division. His expertise will be invaluable as we continue to strengthen our operations and execute on our growth strategy. With that, let's move to our third quarter operating and financial results. This past quarter brought both notable successes to celebrate as well as new challenges for our team to navigate. Among the successes was the completion of construction at Taltukama operation, culminating in the first production of first saleable copper concentrate in July 2024. Reaching this milestone just over three years after the publication of Tukumar's optimized feasibility study in September 2021 is a testament to our team's extraordinary dedication and hard work. What makes me most proud, however, is that we achieved this milestone without a single lost time injury. Another important milestone in the quarter was the execution of a definitive earning agreement on the Furnas copper gold project with a subsidiary of Vale Base Metals in July. Consistent with the terms outlined in the binding term sheet announced in October 2023, we are delighted to partner with Vale Base Metals on this opportunity and look forward to advancing the project towards a final investment decision over the next few years. Shortly after executing the agreement, we applied for the drilling permits required to commence the phase one drill program, which we received in September. Then in early October, we published an initial NI43-101 compliant mineral resource estimate, based on a contemplated high-grade underground mine scenario. In mid-October, the first drill rig arrived at site, and we kicked off the 28,000-meter Phase I drill program, which will focus on infill drilling and extending high-grade zones within the broader deposit to depth. As of the end of October, we have two drill rigs on site, with an additional two rigs expected to arrive by the end of this month. Our plan includes drilling approximately 4,500 meters in the fourth quarter, with the remainder scheduled for 2025. Alongside these achievements and the strong progress we made in executing our growth strategy, we encountered operational challenges at both Cariiba and Tucumã. On a positive note, we achieved an 11.9% increase in copper production at Cariiba during the quarter, producing 9,920 tons of copper in concentrate, driven by higher mine grades of both Romeos and Pilar. This improvement reflects progress in developing high-grade stoves at Pilar during the quarter. However, underground development rates at Pilar have not advanced at the pace we had anticipated, primarily due to underperformance by the third-party contractor we engage for this work. To address this, we are bringing on a second contractor before year-end. In the meantime, lower mining rates at Palar are expected to extend into the fourth quarter. As a result, we are adjusting our full-year production guidance at Karaibe to 35,000 to 37,000 tons of copper in concentrate production. Despite production headwinds at Karaibe, our C1 cash costs for the quarter decreased 24.5% to $1.63 per pound of copper produced. In addition to higher copper grades, several positive factors contributed to this impressive performance. As mentioned in our previous conference call, the tightness of the copper concentrate market enabled us to secure some of the most favorable treatment and refining terms we have ever seen, which kicked in as of May 2024 for both Cariba and Tukama. Another important driver of our C1 cash cost performance has been a more favorable U.S. dollar to Brazilian reais exchange rate, which averaged approximately 5.6 reais per U.S. dollar in the third quarter. Along with this, we also experienced higher gold byproduct credits with regards to improving gold prices. This reduction in unit operating costs supported improved operating margins at Cariiba. At Tucumã, we began the quarter on a strong note, completing our first 24-hour shift of continuous mill operation and producing our first saleable concentrate in July. This positive momentum continued through most of August as we gradually ramped up mill throughput. However, as we approached higher throughput levels in late August, we encountered intermittent voltage fluctuations on the regional third-party power grid, which limited our ability to sustain higher throughput levels continuously. Initially, we were informed that the voltage fluctuations were due to regional wildfires, which led power utilities to reduce voltage throughout the transmission lines. Following a decrease in wildfire activity, the area, however, was struck by a severe windstorm, causing a 10-day power outage that impacted industrial power consumers, including our Tucumã operation. After power was restored, restored, we safely restarted mill operations on October 16th. However, as we ramped up mill throughput once more, we observed a recurrence of the voltage oscillations initially attributed to wildfires. While the root cause remains under investigation, we promptly deployed an engineering team to implement a mill power management solution allowing for continuous plant operations despite minor voltage fluctuations. Since implementing this solution last week, the plant has maintained continuous operations and is increasing throughput daily and advancing toward full capacity. Due to the intermittent power disruptions, total mill throughput and consequently copper production for the third quarter was below plan, with throughput totaling 110,788 tons and copper production coming in at 839 tons of coppering concentrate. The power issues encountered from late August through most of October have also extended our ramp up to commercial production. As a result, we are revising our four-year copper production guidance for Tukama to a range of 8,000 to 11,000 tons in concentrates. In light of the anticipated delay in achieving commercial production, we are narrowing our C1 copper cash cost guidance to include Onikata Iba, where we are maintaining cost guidance at $1.80 to $2 per pound for the reasons I outlined earlier. Before discussing Gervantino's performance, I'd like to briefly address our expectations for copper production in 2025. While we are still finalizing our production numbers for next year's budget, we anticipate that Carribe will initially underperform relative to previous 2025 guidance as its second development contractor ramps up in the first half of the year. However, we expect Tucumas production to trend towards the higher end of previous guidance due to positive grade reconciliation. Overall, at this stage, our preliminary production profile for 2025 suggests production will generally be in line with our previous guidance. Turning now to our Gervantino operations, we delivered another quarter of strong performance with gold production totaling 13,485 ounces. As mentioned on our second quarter conference call, gold grades were expected to be lower in the second half of the year, leading to decreased production and higher unit costs in the third and fourth quarters. Consistent with these expectations, our third quarter C1 cash costs and all in sustaining costs for the quarter came in at $539 and $1,034 respectively per ounce of gold produced. For the full year, we are reaffirming our increased gold production guidance range of 60,000 to 65,000 ounces and maintaining our reduced cost guidance range of $450 to $550 per ounce for C1 cash costs and $900 to $1,000 per ounce for all-in sustaining costs. Before I hand the call over to Mako and Wayne, I'll briefly cover our quarterly financial results. Our financial performance for the quarter reflects an expansion of operating margins driven by a significant reduction in unit costs at our Cataiba operations and higher realized gold prices at Gervantina. This margin growth led to quarterly operating cash flows of $52.7 million and adjusted EBITDA of $62.2 million. Our liquidity position also remains strong. with total balance sheet liquidity of $125.2 million at quarter end. As we continue ramping up production at Tucumán, we believe we reached the cash flow inflection point in October and anticipate building additional liquidity throughout the end of the year. I'll now pass the call to Mako to discuss our operating results in more detail, after which Wayne will provide more detail on our financial results.