Taseko Mines Limited (AMEX:TGB) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Stuart McDonald: It’s really going to drop off on the capital projects. The crusher work as we noted there is essentially done for the year and we’ll – the final piece there, we’ll pick up in Q2 next year. And then, the other piece that hit us in this quarter was major maintenance 10 million for the shovel. And that’s a one-off as well. It doesn’t – we don’t expect any of those items to hit us in the second half. So we should be really kind of normal run rates for CapEx here in the second half. I don’t know what that something in the range of, I don’t know, 10 million to 15 million perhaps over the next six months, something more typical, maybe closer to 10 million. Yes. And then capital strip is coming from – we’re deep into ore in the Gibraltar pit.

The capital strip in the first half of the year came from the stripping we’re doing on the connector ore zone. And that’s not much happening there in the third quarter. It’ll pick up a little bit again at the end of the year in the last few months, but generally capital strip should be pretty low here for the second half. You might see another 10 million bucks in Q4 perhaps. That’s a very rough number.

Craig Hutchison: Okay, great. Thanks guys.

Operator: Your next question comes from Alex Terentiew with Stifel. Please go ahead.

Alex Terentiew: Hi guys. Good morning, everyone. Just two questions for me. First on Florence. I’m curious with – have you guys secured, I mean obviously, actually haven’t secured yet since you don’t have the final EPA permit, but asset [ph] sources for the mine when it gets up and going. I’m wondering with asset prices in various regions coming down now, is there an opportunity to secure supply? I believe the prices now in the spot market are probably less than what you used in your – in the tech report a few months ago. So that’s first question. And the second one at Gibraltar, it’s good to see costs coming down. You guys are guiding to a better cost in the second half of the year as well. What’s driving that?

The strip ratio of the last two quarters has been a little bit lower than I expected, so that’s good. But I’m just curious, what sort of strip ratio or haul distances a little bit shorter or what else is in there that’s driving the lower costs?

Stuart McDonald: Do you want to speak to asset supply there?

Richard Tremblay: Yes. No problem. Yes. So Alex, It’s Richard. So for the asset supply, we’ve been in ongoing discussions with suppliers in the market and there’s a lot of interest in supplying the Florence site. So certainly staying in close contact with what the market is doing and we’ve gotten really positive and strong indications from the asset suppliers about what we can expect going forward. And those conversations are ongoing and really we won’t finalize anything until we get the UIC permit in hand and see the timing. There’s some pretty interesting developments with supply or storage being put in place close to the project site, which greatly helps on the asset price.

Alex Terentiew: Yes, okay. That’s what I was hoping to hear because I think otherwise if you bring it in from California, it’s quite a bit more expensive for just the transport cost.

Richard Tremblay: Yes. Okay.

Stuart McDonald: Yes. Alex, your question on the cost at Gibraltar, as I think the big item there is just production increasing, right? It’s always the denominator as you know, whether you’re milling 0.22 or 0.25 or your costs are the same and so it’s getting the pounds out, which is the biggest driver of reducing our costs. I think we noted our site spending was a little bit lower in Q2 versus Q1. Diesel costs have come off and a few savings here and there on the site. But it’s – they said it’s a fixed cost operation. We have our fleet running 24/7 and we really have to get the pounds up to get our unit costs down. I think if you look at the second half with our production guidance, if we can achieve that, yes, we should see a meaningful reduction in Q1 below Q2 levels.