Ero Copper Corp. (NYSE:ERO) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Orest Wowkodaw: Okay. Because this is — I’d say this is an unusual to see it this way in terms of it being reported. I mean, potentially could — are these not — should not these be reflected in costs — in C1 costs rather than a discounted LME price?

Wayne Drier: Look, we have a certain approach that we take. And the — we’re comfortable that these reflect discounts to the metal price. And we’ve been very consistent with this approach over the last few years. So we haven’t changed our approach to that. And I think that’s reflected in — if you look back in our — in prior reporting.

Orest Wowkodaw: Okay. Thank you very much.

Operator: The next question comes from Gordon Lawson with Paradigm Capital. Please go ahead.

Gordon Lawson: Hey, good morning and thank you for taking my question. Can you please provide a little more color on the 45% completion at Tucumã in terms of the status of delivery of long lead items?

Makko DeFilippo: Yeah. Hey, Gordon, this is Makko. So when you look at our long lead items, effectively all the purchases have been placed. As I said the longest lead items which we’ve been on are ball mill and primary crusher. Those have arrived on site. When I go through the manufacturing punch list across the remaining long lead items, those are in near completion stage at most of our providers for those pieces of equipment. And we expect deliveries to occur throughout the balance of the year on all long lead items that we purchased or put deposits on in the last 12 to 14 months.

Gordon Lawson: Okay. Great. Thank you. And looking at the pre-stripping, seeing how far it’s ahead of schedule are there any plans to mine and stockpile the sulfide ore prior to the mill completion?

Makko DeFilippo: Yeah. If you look at the schedule Gordon, it’s a great question we’re about 2.7 million cubic meters advanced or approximately five million tonnes on the pre-strip. We anticipate reaching first sulfide ore in November of this year, so sometime during Q4. And we will accumulate a stockpile of ore in advance of commissioning which we anticipate occurring in 2024 as you know.

David Strang: I’ll even add on to that Gordon, what I’m pretty impressed with the group is the detail they’ve gone into even with the stockpile. We — obviously, everybody knows that we’re going to be mining very, very high grades in the early part of the mine’s life. And the team has actually put together a plan whereby we’re going to have both a high-grade and a lower-grade stockpile so that as we go through re-commissioning and we are starting to work and make sure everything works that we’re not wasting high-grade material running it through as we’re testing, but rather using lower-grade material for that test work. And I’ve got to commend Makko and the team with regards to — the thinking with regards to doing that and the granularity that the team is working towards even with regards to that nuance.

Gordon Lawson: Okay. That sounds great. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] The next question comes from Stefan Ioannou with Cormark Securities. Please go ahead.

Stefan Ioannou: Yeah. Thanks very much guys and congratulations Courtney. Just curious in past calls you sort of — you mentioned seeing potential — district potential beyond Tucumã. I know it’s always hard to comment on these things, but is there anything where you can update us on that front in terms of what you’re seeing in that area maybe next?