Ero Copper Corp. Q2 FY2025 Earnings Call

Thank you, operator. Good morning, and welcome to Ero Copper's Second 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 3 and 6 months ended June 30, 2025. A corresponding earnings presentation can be downloaded directly from the webcast and is also available in the Presentations section of our website. Joining me on the call today are Makko DeFilippo, President and Chief Executive Officer; Wayne Drier, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Gelson Batista, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer; and Farooq Hamed, our new Vice President of Investor Relations, who joined Ero in mid-July. Many of you already know Farooq, and I'm sure you'll have the opportunity to connect with him soon. 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 SEDAR and EDGAR. Unless otherwise noted, all figures discussed today are in U.S. dollars. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Makko DeFilippo.

Thank you, Courtney, and thank you all for taking the time to join us today. I want to talk about the important foundational work we've been doing over the last several months to illustrate why 2025 is really a year of two halves. Early this year, we initiated an operational excellence framework. During the first half of the year, we made significant progress across our operating portfolio, laying the necessary groundwork to deliver safe and sustainable growth in production for years to come. It was a period of significant change, driven by a back-to-basics approach, combined with some major steps forward in strategy and technology across our operations. During this transformation, we refined our operating strategies, improved predictive maintenance, reduced our unplanned downtime, improved our fleet management and dispatch systems, and hired and integrated new leadership in critical roles throughout the company. This fundamental groundwork was necessary and nonlinear. The significant changes we have made across the company are focused on stabilizing operating performance and preparing our organization for the long-term growth we see ahead of us. This work was undertaken while successfully completing the necessary repairs at Tucumã and completely changing the mining method at our Xavantina operations. I am extremely proud of our teams for their effort on Ero's transformation over the last six months, and we are starting to see the benefits reflected in our operating results. The second quarter culminated in the announcement of commercial production at Tucumã and was highlighted by significant quarter-on-quarter increases in production from both Caraíba and Xavantina. The turnaround at Caraíba and Xavantina contributed to record consolidated copper production and solid financial performance, leading indicators that we have the right teams in place and the right operating framework to achieve our results, but I certainly recognize the first half was not without its challenges. When I look ahead to the second half of the year, I see a different picture. The foundational work we have completed over the last several months is setting us up well to continue building momentum in the coming quarters. Our revised guidance range reflects our expectation that our third quarter will be better than the second, the fourth quarter better than the third, and that 2026 will be better than 2025. The way I think about this is that we arrived a bit late to the station, but if you step back with me and look at the second half of the year in isolation from the first, you will see an annualized rate that is closely aligned with our longer-term production outlook across each of our operations, late to the station, but full steam ahead. Before I turn the call over to Wayne to discuss our financial results, I would like to share a bit of detail on our improved operating performance at Caraíba and Xavantina, the progress we are making at Furnas and how this all aligns with our broader strategy. At Caraíba, we saw a solid turnaround in operating performance this quarter, highlighted by a 25% increase in copper production when compared to Q1. Initiatives that we launched to enhance operating performance and drive efficiencies are delivering results. A few of the behind-the-scenes highlights achieved during the second quarter include a 50% reduction in unplanned infrastructure downtime, record pace backfill rates, and a more than 10% improvement across the board in our mobile equipment fleet availability. In parallel, we have started deploying new to Caraíba but well-established technologies in dispatch, tracking, and monitoring that are transforming the way we operate. We are shifting our focus slightly in Pilar during the second half of the year to optimize our mining center of mass within the upper levels of the mine. We expect this strategy to result in full year copper production trending to the low end of guidance, but we see this implementation paired with ongoing operational improvements, giving us the ability to enhance our cost control efforts, and we expect C1 cash costs to be in the bottom half of our guidance range for the full year. At Xavantina, we spent the first half of the year setting the mine up for mechanization, a long-term investment that will unlock considerable value for the operation. We spent some additional time in H1 to get this transition setup right. We worked during Q2 to prepare the mine, prepare our teams, hire new roles that were needed on site, all fundamentally geared to ensure we could do it successfully and safely. The additional time was worth it. Gold production was up an impressive 17% versus Q1, and we expect the full benefit of mine mechanization to flow through our results in the second half of the year as mine tonnages improve sequentially. Our low-profile equipment is working well. The stopes we have mined using mechanized methods have been a definitive success, and we see a clear pathway towards meaningfully increasing production volumes from Xavantina over the next several months. At Furnas, we completed our Phase 1 drill program in early July and have maintained eight drill rigs on the project to ensure we can complete most of the Phase 2 drill program, an additional 17,000 meters by year-end. Our Phase 2 program includes a greater proportion of extensional holes to depth and we are already seeing strong signs of success in this program. Technical work streams to support the preliminary economic analysis for Furnas are ongoing, and we remain on track to complete this study during the first half of next year. To briefly recap, we are delivering on our 2025 strategy. We set out this year to improve our existing operations, achieve commercial production at Tucumã, deleverage our balance sheet, aggressively advance long-term growth initiatives at Furnas, and initiate returns to shareholders. We are well on our way. I was in our offices and on-site last week in Brazil, and I am proud and thankful for the work our global leadership team is doing to achieve these objectives. To ensure we have sufficient time for Q&A, I will leave it there and pass the call to Wayne, who will provide more detail on our financial results.

Thank you, Makko. Our robust financial performance was fueled by record copper production and favorable metal prices, leading to an adjusted EBITDA of $82.7 million and an adjusted net income attributable to shareholders of $48.1 million or $0.46 per share. Our liquidity remains strong at $113 million, which includes $68.3 million in cash and cash equivalents and $45 million available under our revolving credit facility. During the quarter, we reduced our debt by paying down $10 million of our revolving credit and $9 million of our copper prepayment facility. Along with improved EBITDA compared to the first quarter, these measures decreased our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio from 2.4x to 2.1x. We anticipate higher production in the second half of the year, which should further speed up our deleveraging efforts. As part of our foreign exchange hedge program, our total notional position at the end of the quarter was $240 million, composed of zero-cost collars with a weighted average floor and ceiling of BRL 5.53 and BRL 6.52 per U.S. dollar, respectively, extending through June 2026. While the exchange rate has mostly stayed within our collar range this quarter, we recorded a small realized gain of $0.2 million. I'll now hand the call back to Makko for final remarks.

Thank you, Wayne. Before we move into the Q&A session, I want to take a moment to reiterate our commitment to delivering on our strategy at Ero. With operational improvements well underway and the commercial production of Tucumã behind us, we expect to continue our deleveraging path, further advance our long-term growth initiatives, and position ourselves to initiate shareholder returns. With that, I'll now turn the call back to the operator to open the line for questions.

Our first question is from Dalton Baretto with Canaccord Genuity.

I want to start by asking about Tucumã. Your disclosure says that you ran at about 75% of design capacity in the last two weeks of June. Just wondering if you can give us a July update and also sort of highlight what kind of assumptions went into the updated guidance?

Yes. Thank you, Dalton. Look, from my perspective, just to recap, I think the important thing to note at Tucumã, obviously, we achieved those levels of production in June. When I look at the difference from the first half to the second half and what we've been able to achieve, we've gone from some clear bottlenecks in being able to achieve design rates to now achieving rates that are at or slightly below where our design rate is, but the requirement today is different. We need to achieve the results more consistently. We've been able to demonstrate both in June and July that we can operate at much higher rates. So I think the main takeaway from us on this call is that the transition from H1 to H2, H1 was about addressing bottlenecks. H2 is about achieving rates we've already achieved, but doing it more consistently. So I don't want to get into specific numbers about July themselves. But what I can say is that when I look ahead to Q3 and Q4, we've been able to achieve the rates during the month for days and weeks. We need to do that consistently over the full quarter, and we expect to continue to improve sequentially through the back half of the year.

Can you comment on sort of what percentage of design you're assuming for Q3 and then again for Q4, just on average?

Yes. By year-end, we expect to be close to our design capacity, which we initially projected for the end of this year. We believe this will carry into the first quarter of next year. When I review our projections for the third and fourth quarters, they align with the rates we achieved in the latter part of June. We aim to reach around 80% of our design capacity by year-end.

The next question is from Fahad Tariq with Jefferies.

At Caraíba, I'm just trying to reconcile how good the cash costs have been in the second quarter and what the guidance is for the full year. It sounds like production is going to get better in the second half of this year. The optimization improvements, they're all kind of trending well. I'm just trying to understand, is there a potential for cash cost to come in below the guidance range at Caraíba? Or is there some upward pressure that you can highlight?

Yes. Thanks. It's a great question. Look, I mean, obviously, we're well into our operational improvement program here at Caraíba, and we're seeing those benefits. We started this journey in the first part of the year with Gelson and our leadership team on site, having some really strong success so far. I think where we see the upward pressure in cost in the second half relative to the first is really the shift in strategy. So we're seeing a bit lower grades than the first half in the second half, and that's contributing to a bit of an upward trajectory relative to the first half. I'd say when you look at the full year in context of our original guidance range, we still see that coming at the lower half of the range. Again, that's been, I would say, supported by ongoing favorable TC/RC environment as well as elevated byproduct metal prices as well. So for sure, there's the potential there to be at the very low end or potentially below, but we're looking at lower grades in the second half of the year, higher throughput volumes. And we expect that for that reason to be in the lower half of the range.

Okay. And then on Xavantina, can you just remind us how grades have been reconciling to the plan, at least in the first half of this year? And how should we be thinking about grades in the second half? Will the mechanized mining result in greater dilution?

I'm going to answer this in two parts. So we've spent the time to set up the mine, as I said in the opening remarks, to ensure that mechanization could deliver results successfully and safely. We've mined several stopes so far. Our dilution of stopes has actually been less than what we experienced in manual mining. And so we're really, really pleased with the progress we're seeing there. I'd reiterate it's only a handful of stopes. We have many more ahead of us for the balance of the year, but the initial start on that program has been a definitive success. And we see grades in line with our expectations for the full year. Obviously, we had a bit of a softer Q1 in terms of grades, but going into Q2 and certainly what we're seeing in Q3 and Q4, we expect grades to be in line with our expectations and the overall block model.

The next question is from Orest Wowkodaw with Scotiabank.

I wanted to ask a couple of questions similar vein to Dalton here. Just coming back to Tucumã, can you give us an update on what the remaining bottlenecks are in terms of the operation running at steady-state throughput for longer periods of time? It sounds like you're still somewhat in the stop-start phase, if I heard your comments earlier. And just curious again, if you'd provide any kind of throughput number for July to give us a sense of progress?

Thank you for the question, Orest. I wouldn't describe it as stop-start. When comparing the first half with the second half of the year, we are consistently meeting the rates we need to achieve. As we focus on the second half and the challenges ahead, we've been operating this plant for a year now and our main goal is to enhance preventative maintenance to ensure steady performance. Our best days and weeks are significantly better than what we need in the latter part of this year to meet our targets, but we have to sustain that performance for the entire month and quarter. That's our current focus. We have allocated additional resources and received support from Caraíba and our teams there to help us in the second half. This experience is quite different from the first half of the year, where we experienced fundamental bottlenecks, such as piping valves and pumps that needed replacement. Those issues have been addressed, and now we are in the phase of achieving operational consistency.

Okay. And any comments on throughput for July?

No, I have no comments on July.

I may have missed it, but I didn't see any information regarding the shaft sinking at Pilar in your disclosure. Can you provide a quick update on that? Is it progressing on schedule and within budget? Where do things currently stand?

Yes. Great question, Orest, and thank you for asking. The shaft project is going really well. At the end of June, we're about 700 meters below surface. So roughly halfway, I think, at this point, end of July here, roughly halfway down. Obviously, CapEx is tracking well with our expectations, and we expect that to be operational in 2027, which is reflected in our longer-term outlook for Caraíba.

The next question is from Ralph Profiti with Stifel.

Makko, I want to ask a question on Caraíba. The contribution from the Surubim pit. Just wondering how much of that was in the second quarter numbers? How much of that is planned for the second half of the year? And when you talk about mining tonnage sort of outperforming, is this a haulage distance issue? Is this drill and blast optimization, something on grade control? Just wondering where that outperformance is coming?

I believe the answer to the question about outperformance is a positive one. A significant emphasis has been placed on operational excellence, and the team has done an outstanding job in various areas, including maintenance, reviewing block designs, improving ventilation, and ensuring the consistency of our haulage fleet. These small enhancements are driving our gains. Surubim is indeed a crucial factor. As everyone on this call is aware, Surubim plays an important role in our production profile for the remainder of this year and into next year. We anticipate these benefits as we transition through what we understand to be the final pushback at the Surubim operation, allowing us to access higher-grade materials, which will significantly impact our production profile in the latter half of this year and into 2026. This aligns with our long-term strategy, and the overall value of Caraíba remains unchanged. We have been developing Surubim over the past few years since we resumed operations there, and we are now entering a phase where we can start generating returns on the pre-stripping work completed.

Okay. Great. And how has the power situation demand...

Sorry, cut out on this end. I know the question is about power, but the second half of that question was completely cut out for us on this end. Can you just repeat that?

My apologies. Just wondering how the plant is responding to the incremental power draw requirements.

At Tucumã, yes, we don't see any bottlenecks. As I said on our last conference call, we don't see any barriers with respect to power at Tucumã. Again, really the main focus for us is on preventative maintenance and making sure that we can achieve consistent performance.

The next question is from Bryce Adams with Desjardins.

Also following on from Dalton's questions. I too was hoping for some more color on July Tucumã numbers. If you can't talk to the mining and milling rates, can you talk to how much stockpiled material you had on site as of June? And were you drawing on or adding to the stockpiles in July?

Yes. Thank you, Bryce. Good question. With respect to stockpile, yes, our mining rates have obviously trended above where we needed to be since we started the pre-stripping. We slowed down mining rates a bit in Q2 just because the stockpile volumes that we have available are so significant. And in July, we started now again to really add to that stockpile. So we're still in that 1.5 million to 2 million tonne range, which is where we've been basically since we started production or at least got through the tail end of last year. So that stockpile volumes remain the same. We expect the second half of this year to build a bit more of additional stockpile as we increase mining rates. And again, that's aligned with our long-term strategy at Tucumã.

The next question is from Anita Soni with CIBC World Markets.

First time I'm asking a question on your call. I wanted to understand the expected grade decline at Caraíba for the second half of the year. Currently, the average for the first half is 1.22%, which saw a slight increase in Q2 compared to Q1. Will it stay in a similar range, possibly dropping to 1.1%, or will it be around 1.2% or 1.15%?

Yes. Thank you for your question and for being on the call. I think two key points are important when considering the plant throughput and grade profile at Caraíba for the second half of the year. First, Surubim is becoming a more significant part of our plant feed mix. While Surubim has a lower average grade compared to our underground mines, it remains a high-margin contributor, particularly in the latter half of this year into next year. However, this will lower our overall blended throughput grades in the second half of the year. Our guidance range indicates that for the full year, we will likely be between 1.1% and 1.2%. You can calculate the numbers for the second half based on this information. The key takeaway is that Surubim is increasingly contributing to our overall mix, which has a lower grade than our underground operations.

Okay. What is your target for the exit rate on the throughput? I believe you mentioned 80% of the nameplate capacity.

Yes. If I look at where we're projecting to exit at the end of the year, as I said, we've closed out June achieving more than 75% of our target capacity. When I look at our days and weeks, we've achieved well beyond that. Really, the objective here in the second half is to do that more consistently day on day, week on week and quarter-on-quarter. If I look at the normalized exit velocity at year-end, we expect to be above 80%. So I think the main message here is our revised guidance range considers that we have continued improvement, but it's not outside of the range that we've already been able to demonstrate we can achieve.

Okay. Can I ask about Xavantina? Could you remind me what the nameplate capacity of the processing plant's mill is?

Yes. The design capacity is mentioned in our tech report to be around 300,000 tonnes of ore. It's still a small plant overall, and while we anticipate an increase in volume quarter-on-quarter, we expect to utilize a growing proportion of that capacity, but it will not be at full design rates by the end of the year.

And how do you see that ramping up going into 2026?

Yes, we're currently working on that. It's a great question. We just started our budget process for 2026 this week, and we're very excited about Xavantina and the efforts of our teams there. However, it's a bit too early to provide specific details on that. If we examine the second half of this year and the annualized production rate suggested in our revised guidance range, we are still looking at 50,000 to 60,000 ounces of production. Overall, we are pleased with our performance in the latter half of this year and anticipate that it will carry on into 2026.

I'm sorry if I missed it, but could you explain why the recovery rates went down at Xavantina this quarter?

Yes. At Xavantina, the deposit is composed of a quartz vein that contains carbonaceous material. Our recovery rates can fluctuate based on the amount of carbonaceous material present. I believe this is a temporary reduction that occurs occasionally, but we do not anticipate it persisting for the remainder of the year.

The next question is from Guilherme Rosito with Bank of America.

Can you guys hear me all right?

Yes, we can. Thank you.

So, my first one is maybe broad and you touched a bit on that in your opening remarks. But if we look at Ero Copper's history, you guys always delivered guidance. And now for the past two years, you had to revise it downwards. And I know you touched a bit on that. But as you look back, what are the main lessons you guys are taking from this experience? What do you think were the challenges? And what are you learning? And how is that changing how you guys are thinking about Furnas and how you develop that project? Then my second question is to Wayne. Now that Tucumã commercial production was finally declared, next step is starting to return cash to shareholders and cash returns. So what do you think is a reasonable timeline to expect you guys starting to starting the actual cash returns?

Thank you for the question. It's a valid one regarding our guidance, and I appreciate it. There are several important points to highlight. This year, we underwent significant changes across the organization. As I mentioned earlier, we didn't reach the stage we had aimed for at the beginning of the year. There were a few factors that delayed progress, particularly at Xavantina and Tucumã, each for different reasons. I am proud of the decisions made at Xavantina this past year as we prioritized safe and consistent performance, which took us longer than expected, but I believe the results will be evident in the second half of the year. The situation at Caraíba is different, with new teams integrating and reassessing our operating strategy to enhance performance, which has affected our guidance, though we are also working on improving margins to mitigate this. As for Tucumã, it's a challenging time for accurate projections, but we have made strides in stabilizing our operating performance and resolving design-related bottlenecks. If you look at our capabilities at Xavantina and Caraíba, I am confident in our potential for excellent and safe operating performance moving forward, which gives us some assurance regarding our guidance for the second half of the year. I acknowledge the transformations our organization has undergone in the last six months, and I'm pleased with the leadership team we've built. The updated guidance reflects our dedication to consistent, safe operating performance and transparency about our current status. Notably, the upper end of our guidance remains at the lower end of our previous forecasts, and while we see scenarios where this could be surpassed, we are conscious of the realities we faced in the first half of the year. In direct response to your question, I believe the updated guidance range now incorporates valuable insights gained over the past year. Regarding Furnas, its status as a development project remains unchanged. We are currently in the drilling phase and have met our expectations, concluding Phase 1 of our drilling program slightly after our target. Furnas is moving into the Preliminary Economic Assessment (PEA) phase, and we are pleased with our timeline, anticipating progress in the first half of next year.

Sure. Thanks. In response to your second question, we have experienced a somewhat slower start in our efforts to reduce our debt and increase our cash reserves. We are being very careful about this and wish to see the debt reduction continue through the end of the year. We also have ongoing discussions with our Board regarding the right timing for considering returns to shareholders. However, our primary focus remains on restoring our balance sheet to our desired state, which will be our priority for the remainder of the year.

The next question is from Craig Hutchison with TD Cowen.

Just one question for me. Just on Caraíba, one of your initiatives to control cost was to focus on Pilar's mine fleet on the upper levels of the mine to reduce haul distances. I was just wondering how sustainable this is? Is this something you can achieve for the next couple of years? Or is it more focused just on this year alone?

Thank you, Craig, for your question. We definitely recognize the opportunity from the drilling we've conducted in the upper mine and the available resources to pursue this strategy over the next few years until the shaft becomes operational. There is a balance to maintain between some of the higher grades we are finding as we deepen and the continued development. As you know, operating flexibility for Pilar has always been part of our strategy, and we have been pleased that the efforts to mobilize a second development contractor over the past six months to a year have allowed us to explore these strategies and rethink our near-term plans. We believe there is potential to continue our initiatives, focusing on operational improvements that will apply regardless of whether we are mining the shallow or deeper parts of the mine. The maintenance work, predictive maintenance, personnel tracking, and dispatch systems that Gelson and the team are implementing will benefit all mine areas. This operational framework we established earlier this year has required significant effort from our teams to achieve the results we've seen. We still see a path for enhanced performance, which will be our priority for the next six and 18 months, and this will significantly benefit our performance when the shaft becomes operational in 2027.

The next question is from Matthew Murphy with BMO.

I have a follow-up on Tucumã. You've mentioned a few times just the push for consistency, preventative maintenance. Wondering if you can add any color about which areas of the mill need the most attention. I think you had some work on the tailings filter last quarter. Anything else you can flag that needs focus at this point and how you're addressing it?

Yes. As I said, year into the operation here, our main focus areas, and I'll let Gelson add if he's got any color to add here. But our main focus areas at Tucumã, obviously, the filter presses an area of additional attention and preventative maintenance routines. Again, we've got two filters that have been operating for a year, one that's been operating only for a short period of time, given that it was down for a significant portion of the ramp-up. And so making sure that we've got the systems in place and the people in place and teams in place to be able to do that. And then also on the crushing and conveying systems, right? Those have been operating for a year and making sure that we've got consistency of performance there. When I look to the milling and flotation side, we've had a really strong performance there in terms of throughput rates, recoveries have all been good. So we see less of a focus; I'd say more at the front of the plant. Obviously, we assume lower availability for our crushing and conveying systems overall, but still need some attention points there to address. Gelson, I don't know if you have anything to add on that.

No, Marco, thank you. I think you hit there. Asset management strength and optimization on the predictive maintenance. I think these are key aspects across the board on the entire plant and the areas that you mentioned on the crushing and conveying and, of course, the filter.

The next question is from Orest Wowkodaw with Scotiabank.

Actually, my question has been answered.

Thanks, Orest.

This concludes the question-and-answer session. I'd like to turn the conference back over to Makko DeFilippo for any closing remarks.

Yes. Thank you for joining the call, everyone. I appreciate the time on a Friday before the long weekend for those dialing in from Canada. Just a reminder that all of us are available for any follow-up questions, and we'll chat soon. Thank you very much.

This brings to a close today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating, and have a pleasant day.