Stefan Ioannou: Okay. Got it. yes. It’s really nice to have but not necessarily must have.
David Strang: Correct.
Stefan Ioannou: Yes. Yes. And maybe one other one for me, just on the gold exploration with Ero. I mean, obviously, nickel is still something we always think about in the background. Is there any more updates there? I know there was talk of still trying to secure some property positions before you sort of really pushing it even a hard run. Is that still the case or…?
David Strang: Yes. Yes. We continue to do work on nickel albeit not at the same rate as we had done early last year. I’ve asked the team to take a step back and do them because, as I’ve mentioned in the past over, the last six to eight months, the nickel opportunity has got a lot bigger than we ever thought it would become. And with that, I think we have to be cognizant and disciplined with regards to how we go about evaluating all of these target areas. And what we do in terms of going about that. A lot of this is predicated right now with regards to the government auction process. I’m happy to say the government has given us notification that they will imminently start that process, and we hope to see that and be able to give the marketplace more insights into how the auction has gone, et cetera, in the third quarter.
But certainly, the opportunity set on nickel sulphide exploration is significant and — but we just need to be super smart with regards to how we approach this right now because I think you could really go and blow your brains out in terms of trying to attack this too quickly. And so Mike and his team are evaluating a number of different things with regards to surface geochemistry work, with regards to ground-based EM analysis, et cetera, to see if there are ways that we can shortcut this process as opposed to having to drill significant amounts of holes to try and identify opportunities in nickel sulfide. So, very much a work in progress and certainly, one that we continue to evaluate and we’ll continue to work on. But right now, the priority remains for us is Tucuma.
When Tucuma done, obviously, Furnas is such a big growth opportunity for us that, that really provides a great future for us as a copper mining company. And as and if nickel continues to develop, so we will continue to follow it on a need basis.
Stefan Ioannou: Okay. Great. Great answers. Very helpful. Thanks guys. Appreciate it.
Operator: Thank you. [Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Connor Mackay with Ventum Financial. Please go ahead.
Connor Mackay: Hi, guys. Thanks for taking my questions. Good morning. Just along the same Wayne as the first question asked here. I was just wondering, approximately when are you expecting to hit that full 4.2 million ton per annum run rate at Caraiba.
Makko DeFilippo: Yes. Great question. Look I think for us at Caraiba obviously, we completed the mill expansion. Here we have Honeypot in production in the upper levels of the mine I would classify as the whole complex. The deepening is in production as well. So those increased production rates up to 4.2 will be closed this year when the dust settles. But in terms of getting over 4 million tons that’s really going to be a post shaft completion when we have the two mine system completed at Pilar Mine. So, as I said, if you look at our throughput estimate for this year, it’s going to be up significantly relative to prior years. But achieving the full mill capacity as I said is really longer term when we have those shafts operating.
Connor Mackay: Awesome. Thanks for that. And then just one more quick one on Tucuma, with the transition into operations from construction and getting into the first full year production next year, what kind of levels of sustaining capital should we be expecting particularly in relationship to the most recent technical report which I imagine there’s some level of inflation that needs to be factored in there at this point?
Makko DeFilippo: Yes. Look in the first year of operations I wouldn’t anticipate much in the way of sustained capital at all really. I mean obviously, we will be continuing to do some stripping during the year. But if you look at our strip ratio in the first year is still really low. So I would anticipate that most of that is expensed in the first year. So we don’t get into meaningful pushbacks until later on in the mine life, but we’ll incur additional sustaining costs related to stripping. So it’s going to be a small amount. I don’t have the exact number off the top of my head here. We can follow up in a call afterwards to give you the specifics, but it’s going to be very small.
Connor Mackay: Appreciate it. Thank you, very much.
Operator: Thank you. This concludes the question-and-answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to David Strang for any closing remarks.
David Strang: Thank you, operator. And again, thanks to everybody for coming on the call. We really appreciate everybody’s interest in our company. We look forward to talking to you all again in August, where we hope to be having more detailed and granular conversations with regards to which the exact day is that we’re going to actually hit commercial production and we’ll be happily talking to you about how Tucuma is coming on schedule and the concentrate sales that we’ve started to make at that time. So, thanks again everybody and we look forward to talking to you again as I said in August. Enjoy your summer. Thank you.
Operator: This brings to an end to today’s conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.
