Ero Copper Corp.

Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Eric Hopper First Quarter 2025 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 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, Executive Vice President, External Affairs and Strategies. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Operator. Good morning and welcome to AeroCopper's first quarter earnings call. Our operating and financial results were released yesterday afternoon and are available on our website, along with our financial statements and MD&A for the three months ended March 31st, 2025. A corresponding earnings presentation can be downloaded directly from the webcast and is also available in the presentation section of our website. Joining me on the call today are Marco DiFilippo, President and Chief Executive Officer, Wayne Dreyer, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, and Jelson Batista, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that today's discussion will include forward-looking statements, which involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially. For a detailed discussion of these risks and their potential impact on our business, please refer to our most recent annual information form, available on our website as well as on CDAR and EDGAR. Unless otherwise noted, all figures discussed today are in U.S. dollars. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Marco DiFilippo.

Thank you, Courtney, and thank you everyone for taking the time to join us today. Our first quarter marked a critical period to set up our operations and our company for success. During these first few months of 2025, we've made meaningful progress towards achieving our near-term objectives while laying important groundwork for sustainable growth in copper production, increased operating margins, and long-term value creation across our portfolio. I am deeply thankful for the ongoing contributions of our global leadership team towards achieving this vision. Our near-term strategy for Arrow is simple, and it remains unchanged. As I have said before, there are four steps to this strategy. Step one, achieve commercial production at Tukma. Two, deleverage our balance sheet. aggressively advance long-term growth initiatives, including our partnership on Fernas, and step four, initiate returns to shareholders. Starting with Tucumá and the first step of our strategy, we remain on track to achieve commercial production over the coming weeks. It was a productive start to the year that involved two extended periods of planned downtime in January and February in order to address plant bottlenecks that we identified during the ramp up of the operation in late 2024. The successful execution of this program allowed consistent mill throughput, and with the elevated grades that we are seeing early in the mine life, the month of March accounted for more than half of Tucumã's total plant throughput and copper production during the first quarter. In April, we focused our attention on one of the last remaining items outstanding on our punch list, repairing the damaged third tailings filter which we completed at the end of the month. We expect throughput volumes to increase steadily over the coming weeks and months as a result of these modifications and repairs. With respect to timing of commercial production, it is worth noting that Tukama operations contributed a significant portion to our consolidated net income and EBITDA during the first quarter. That said, It is still early in May, and we are taking a measured approach here to ensure that the expected throughput improvements following the release of the third filter are maintained prior to making this designation. In summary, we're closing gaps on commercial production at Tukema. We are setting solid foundations to ensure long-term success for the operation, and we are reaffirming our guidance ranges for the full year. The growing contribution from Tsukuma will position us well to begin delivering on our second near-term objective of deleveraging our balance sheet. While we expect this to occur naturally with increasing consolidated EBITDA, assuming metal prices remain constructive, we expect to begin repaying our revolving credit facility during the second half of the year. In parallel, we have continued to aggressively advance our longer-term growth initiatives. These efforts are concentrated currently at Pernas, we have eight drill rigs operating on site. We remain on track to complete the phase one drill program during the third quarter of this year and are pleased with the results we are seeing thus far. In parallel, we are advancing confirmatory technical work in support of a preliminary economic assessment on the project, which we expect to publish in the first half of 2026. Before I turn the call over to Wayne, I would like to share a bit of detail on our operating performance during the first quarter at Cariba and Javanchina and touch on the investments we are making there to enhance operational flexibility and further support long-term growth. At our Cariba operations, lower planned mined and processed copper grades resulted in a quarter-on-quarter decline in copper production and elevated unit costs during the first quarter. While total mined and processed tonnage remained relatively flat compared to the fourth quarter, We've begun to see the benefits of our additional investment in development, which resulted in target mining rates being achieved at the Polar Mine in March. In further support of this effort, we successfully mobilized a second underground development contractor during the quarter, and we expect sequential growth in mine and process volumes, and as a result, copper production through the remainder of the year at Cariba. At our Giavencina operation, total mine and process volumes increased by more than 27% quarter on quarter. However, lower grade mine and process resulted in a decrease in total gold production. While a modest decrease in production was anticipated during the first quarter, grades encountered within planned operational areas were slightly below expectations. In addition, the need for additional ground support at access points of several newly developed higher grade areas within San Antonio delayed contributions from this area. Through the remainder of the year, continued investment in low-profile mining equipment and support infrastructure is expected to support increased mine and process volumes. We see grades improving as compared to the first quarter, which we expect will support higher production levels and lower unit costs as we move forward. To ensure we have sufficient time for Q&A, I will leave it there and pass the call to Wayne, who will provide more detailed financial results.