First Quantum Minerals Ltd.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the first Quantum Minerals quarterly results conference call. I would now like to turn the meeting over to Lisa Doddridge, Director, Investor Relations. Please go ahead, Ms. Doddridge.

Thanks, Melanie, and thank you, everybody, for joining us today to discuss our first quarter 2021 results. Before we begin, I will advise that over the course of the call, we will be making several forward-looking statements. And as such, I encourage you to read the cautionary note that accompanies our most recent MD&A, and the related results news release, as well as the risk factors, particularly to our company, which are detailed in our most recent AIF and available on our website and on CDAR. A reminder that the presentation which accompanies this conference call is available on our website. On today's call, Tristan Pascal, our Chief Operations Officer, will provide some general comments and discuss operations. Then Hannes Meyer, our CFO, will review the financial results. After that, we will open up the lines to take questions. So with that, I'll turn the call over to Tristan.

Thanks Lisa. Hello everyone and thanks for joining. Quarter one was a very strong quarter for the company. Our operations performed in line with plan and we continued to benefit from our low cost structure and stronger copper prices. Operations at Sentinel were strong throughout the course of 2020 and this continued in the first quarter of this year despite the heavy seasonal rains in Zambia. Sensional production grew by 3% from Q1 last year. We processed higher grades and fresher ore from the Stage 2 pit, but throughput was lower as a result of regular maintenance activities, in particular the repairs completed on the Train 1 ball mill trunnion, and also from the impact of the heavy rainy season. The focus for the remainder of this year at Sentinel is on maintaining consistent ore supply and the development of the pocket for the fourth in-pit crusher, which is expected to be commissioned during the second half of the year. The new 63-130 primary crusher is larger than the three existing units, and together they will enable higher throughput of about 62 million tonnes per annum starting in 2022. Consanche's production was also impacted by the heavy rains in the quarter as well as lower grades than were expected in all three circuits. Production declined by 12%. The low production also resulted in increased costs. Despite the challenge of grade continuing to decline at Consanche until a decision on the S3 expansion is made, throughput and grades are expected to remain on plan to meet production guidance for the full year 2021. We continue to look to advance a decision towards the S3 expansion at Kansanshi that would ensure production levels remain steady for a period of more than 20 years. We continue to work with the Zambian government to formulate a framework to move the expansion forward. However, with the country entering into election season from early May, we do not consider a decision will be made until after the election on the 12th of August. Cobra Panama had a very good first quarter with record quarterly production for copper and gold. Copper production was up 46% from Q1 2020 and 25% from Q4 last year. Mining rates, throughputs and grades all increased while costs came down from Q1 2020, despite the addition of about $8 million into costs related with the COVID-19 protocols, which we didn't have last year in the first quarter. We expect to achieve a throughput of about 85 million tonnes this year with improved throughput quarter on quarter as all characteristics improve throughout the year. Cobra Panama also continues to advance the expansion to 100 million tonnes. The focus in Q1 in this regard was on developing access along the overland conveyor corridor to the Kalina pit. Our group costs were low in the quarter driven by strong cost performance across our three large mines. Although costs at our smaller mines generally increase, their contribution to production was smaller relative to the growth in production from the rest of the portfolio where costs are lower. The strong operating performance has been achieved despite the challenges posed by the global pandemic. We continue to deal with the various waves of contagion in different geographies along with the rest of the world. The health and well-being of our workforce and the surrounding communities continues to be our priority in this regard. We have maintained all of our established COVID-19 protocols at all of our mines. We continue to work closely with the various levels of government and the health authorities in all the regions we operate to reduce transmission of the virus and to deal with outbreaks and infections as they occur. We have seen some impact on other aspects of our business, bottlenecks at trade borders, port restrictions and some additional costs on freight as a result of COVID-19 restrictions. We haven't experienced any other major disruptions, and besides the shipping delays and possible higher freight costs, we don't expect to. Before I turn over the call, I would like to highlight one more area. Last quarter, I indicated that during our call, we published for the first time our approach to climate change, making public our intent to deliver meaningful change in our business based on the implementation of stepped change improvement projects. The first quantum approach to climate change in keeping with our results-driven culture is to set tangible targets and focus on the identification and execution of projects which produce real outcomes. We recognise the need to identify and integrate climate change and energy considerations into our strategic planning. Further to this, we have now committed that in 2021, we will report in alignment with a taskforce on climate-related financial disclosures, the TCFD framework, set tangible and realistic targets with an identified pathway to achievement for absolute emission levels and the carbon intensity of the company's operations, and to integrate an internal carbon price and the expected determined impacts on the commodity prices in the evaluation of our new projects. I look forward to reporting further on our progress on these aspects throughout the year. Finally, I want to, on behalf of the entire company, thank our people once again. Our workforce continues to demonstrate adaptability commitment and resilience and make significant contributions to the success of this business in the ongoing pandemic. And with that, I'll turn things over to Hannes Meyer, CFO. Thanks, Tristan, and good day to everyone.