Capstone Copper Corp. ($CS)

Good afternoon, and welcome to Capstone Copper's Q1 2026 Results Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] This call is being recorded on Wednesday, April 29, 2026. I would now like to turn the call over to Daniel Sampieri. Please go ahead.

Thank you, operator, and thank you, everyone, for joining us today to discuss our first quarter results. Please note that the news release and regulatory filings are available on our website and on SEDAR+. If you are logged into the webcast, we will advance the slides of today's presentation, which are also available in the Investors section of our website. I am joined today by our President and CEO, Cashel Meagher; our SVP and Chief Operating Officer, Jim Whittaker; and our SVP and Chief Financial Officer, Raman Randhawa. During the Q&A session at the end of the call, we will also be joined by our Head of Technical Services, Peter Amelunxen; and our SVP, Risk, ESG and our General Counsel, Wendy King. Please note that comments made on the call today will contain forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws. This information, by its nature, is subject to risks and uncertainties, and actual results may differ materially from the views expressed today. For further information, please see Capstone's most recent filings, which are available on our website at www.capstonecopper.com. And finally, I'll just note that all amounts we will discuss today are in U.S. dollars unless otherwise specified. It is now my pleasure to turn the call over to our President and CEO, Cashel Meagher.

Thank you, Daniel, and hello to all of you dialing in from the Americas, Europe, Australia and around the Globe. Today, we are pleased to present our first quarter 2026 results and achievements. Over the last 3 years, we have enhanced our portfolio of assets, delivering a 37% increase in production and matured our processes and systems to align with the scale of company we are today. 2026 marks a year of operational stability and cash generation. We are well positioned in the current environment of heightened geopolitical volatility. To-date, given our scale, operating locations and robust supply chain, we have not experienced any operational impacts from the conflict in the Middle East. We continue to see strong copper demand in the current market and believe the fundamentals support continued strength over the medium- to long-term. At the same time, cost pressures, principally related to diesel and sulfuric acid reinforce the importance and continued focus on cost discipline, operational excellence and maintaining a strong financial position. Through the remainder of 2026, we are looking forward to delivering reliable results from our portfolio of assets while advancing our organic growth opportunities. Starting on Slide 5. In Q1, our operations delivered consolidated copper production of 48,000 tonnes at a consolidated C1 cash cost of $2.66 per pound. Our 2026 guidance is unchanged, including 200,000 to 230,000 tonnes of copper at cash costs between $2.45 and $2.75 per pound. Solid production, combined with exceptionally strong commodity prices drove record EBITDA for the sixth consecutive quarter. Mantoverde quickly returned to design throughput rates following the strike action in January and is again performing reliably and consistently. We were particularly pleased to see the sulphide plant achieved record recoveries in Q1. Reflecting on the strength of our diversified asset base and the improvements we've made across our mine sites, the overall impact of the strike on quarterly performance was approximately 5,000 tonnes of copper, which was incorporated into our annual guidance. The Mantoverde optimized project remains on budget and on schedule. Our team is eager to demonstrate the full potential of Mantoverde by delivering meaningful incremental production at a low capital intensity. Mantos Blancos had another strong quarter as we continue to progress the next phase of growth with the Mantos Blancos Phase 2 project. We plan to submit an EIA permit application for the low capital intensity brownfield expansion during Q2, followed by a prefeasibility study during Q3. At Pinto Valley, we experienced unplanned maintenance during the quarter, which was partially offset by higher grades. As part of our broader asset management framework, we are further refining our maintenance processes, and we are already seeing the benefits from improved tracking of performance metrics. In line with our district growth strategy, we remain focused on unlocking the significant value of Pinto Valley and the surrounding area. Cozamin delivered another quarter of consistently strong performance in Q1, achieving record low cash costs supported by higher by-product credits. Our exploration team continued to make strong progress on the various programs underway this year, including reaching 94% completion on the original 2-year drill campaign at Mantoverde. On the corporate front, we continue to strengthen our financial position by reducing net debt by more than $40 million compared with the year-end 2025. Our balance sheet is in excellent shape, and we will continue to capitalize on strong commodity prices with further deleveraging through internally generated cash flows. This provides a strong platform to navigate any macroeconomic volatility and advance our growth strategy. And with that, I'll pass it to Raman for our financial results.

Thank you, Cashel. We are now on Slide 6. In Q1, we recorded solid copper production of 48,000 tonnes despite the 35-day strike action at Mantoverde. LME copper prices averaged $5.83 per pound in the quarter, up 16% compared to $5.03 per pound in Q4. And we realized a higher copper price of $5.92 per pound. LME copper prices are currently around the same level. Q1 cash cost of $2.66 per pound increased slightly year-over-year, driven primarily by the denominator impact of lower production, partly offset by strong byproduct prices. We realized strong gross margins of $3.26 per pound or 55% in Q1, which is relatively consistent with Q4. Record adjusted EBITDA of $329 million increased 83% year-over-year. And lastly, we reported another record adjusted net income attributable to shareholders of $95 million or $0.12 per share in Q1. A solid Q1 forms a strong foundation for the rest of 2026 as we continue to deliver results and take advantage of higher commodity prices. Moving on to Slide 7. In Q4 2024, we had just achieved nameplate throughput rates and delivered the first 2 shipments of copper concentrate following construction completion of the Mantoverde development project. This slide underpins our ability to build new mines. Since then, we've delivered consistent quarter-over-quarter improvements to both adjusted EBITDA and EBITDA margins. This is now the sixth quarter in a row we've generated record EBITDA as we continue to realize the benefits of our robust foundation of assets amidst a strengthening copper price environment. Next, as highlighted on Slide 8, we finished Q1 with a consolidated net debt of $738 million, which represents a reduction of $43 million from the prior quarter. As you can see in the chart on the slide, the decrease was primarily attributable to strong operating cash flow supported by high copper prices or commodity prices. Included in operating cash flows this quarter was a negative impact of a $30 million repayment on the early deposit under our Gold Stream with Wheaton Precious Metals. This repayment eliminates the associated early deposit delay payments and a liability on our balance sheet of $22 million. Financially, it made more sense to repay the $30 million compared to ongoing more expensive delay payments in spot gold ounces. Now the full $290 million remains available to fund the construction of Santo Domingo. Turning to Slide 9. The decrease in absolute net debt drove a further reduction in our net leverage with a net debt-to-EBITDA ratio of 0.7x at the end of Q1. In line with our commitment to strengthening the balance sheet between growth periods, this ratio has come down significantly from a peak of 3.6x at the end of 2023 following the construction of MVDP, and we've always said we want to be below 1x for Santo Domingo FID, and we have achieved this criteria. Our available liquidity as at March 31, 2026 was greater than $1 billion, including $394 million of cash and cash equivalents, and $652 million of undrawn amounts on our corporate RCF. Available liquidity has been maintained at over $1 billion since the beginning of 2025, which ensures we are well-positioned to move into the next phase of growth. The chart on the right-hand side of the page illustrates our EBITDA sensitivity at various copper prices based on 2026 expectations as well as upside related to MV-O and Santo Domingo at run rate production. The midpoint of our 2026 guidance represents EBITDA in the range of $1.3 billion to $1.7 billion at copper price between $5.50 to $6.50 per pound. And as we look into next year, with MV-O completed and higher grades at Mantos Blancos, we expect to see a significant increase in our EBITDA approaching $1.8 billion to $2.3 billion or close to a 40% growth year-over-year. This level of EBITDA generation will enable us to continue to generate cash during the construction of Santo Domingo, further enhancing our financial position and providing a strong platform to delever peer-leading growth. Next on to Slide 10. We have profiled some of the sensitivities to input cost pressures amidst the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. While the situation continues to evolve to date, our assets continue to operate normally, benefiting from operating locations and robust supply chains. We continue to monitor the pressure from higher diesel and sulfuric acid prices on cost. However, we've been -- we've seen offsetting benefits from strong copper and byproduct prices. We expect to consume approximately 134 million liters of diesel for the remainder of 2026. Our diesel supplies purchased domestically and in Chile imported primarily from the Gulf Coast. We estimate that each 10% move in diesel prices impacts direct costs by $13 million from April onwards, comprising of $9 million or $0.02 per pound on consolidated cash costs or $4 million related to cap stripping. We had used $60 a barrel as a proxy for guidance. We're continuing to evaluate and monitor indirect oil-linked impacts to understand how best to mitigate inflationary pressures as well as the protections we have within our supply contracts. Sulfuric acid is used for our copper cathode production, which makes approximately 15% of our total production. We view the cathodes as an incremental business unit with the majority of our cash flow generated by the sulphides. Our cathode production today continues to generate cash, and we have some fixed price protections. Largely, the acid we consumed in Q1 and Q2 was fixed at a price of roughly $185 per tonne or will consume in Q2. We evaluate the cost on an incremental basis and if we identify the cathode business starts to lose cash, we can either wind down or reduce production levels and continue the sulphides. We expect to consume approximately 590,000 tonnes of sulfuric acid for the remainder of 2026, of which 55% is fixed at a price of $185 per tonne. The remaining 45% is exposed to spot pricing with a variable price supply weighted to the second half of 2026. We have estimated that each 10% move in sulfuric acid prices impacts direct costs by approximately $5 million or $0.01 per pound from April onwards, and we have confidence in the security of supply for the rest of 2026 with approximately 70% currently contracted from Chile, Peru, Asia, excluding China. On a consolidated company-wide basis, year-to-date, we have seen higher byproduct prices compared to our guidance assumptions, which helped offset some of the upward cost pressure, a 10% increase in byproduct prices would reduce our C1 by about $14 million or $0.03 per pound. As we navigate through this period of macroeconomic uncertainty, we are focused on protecting margins to ensure the benefits of stronger commodity prices flow through to the bottom line. With that, I'll hand it over to Jim for the Ops.

Thanks, Raman. We are now on Slide 12. We will start with our Mantoverde operation. For Q1, total production yielded 19,018 tonnes of copper at combined C1 cash cost of $2.59 per payable pound. Plant throughput averaged 27.7,000 tonnes per day for the quarter and above our design capacity in February and March. Copper grades averaged 0.61% in Q1, driven by the processing of lower-grade stockpiles. We were very pleased to see recoveries achieved a record 90.3% during the quarter. Now on Slide 13, we are excited to highlight the progress made on Mantoverde optimized. In the first quarter, we began taking deliveries of key equipment in addition to starting construction at the concentrator plant. In Q2, we will receive the remaining equipment, materials and supplies on site while executing construction at the concentrator plant, the tailings storage facility and the desalinization plant. Our expectations around capital costs and time lines are unchanged with majority of project tie-ins scheduled to be completed during an extended 15-day maintenance period in Q3, followed by a ramp-up period in Q4 2026. The expanded sulphide throughput capacity of approximately 45,000 ore tonnes per day is expected to be sustained starting in early 2027. We are eager to imminently deliver production growth at our flagship asset through MV-O, which adds 20,000 tonnes per annum of copper production at a low capital intensity of approximately $9,000 per tonne. Turning to Slide 14. Mantos Blancos continues to perform well to begin 2026. Total sulphide and cathode production yielded 12,301 tonnes of copper at C1 cash costs of $3.02 per payable pound. Throughput averaged 19.7,000 tonnes per day in Q1 with the site completing 4 days of planned maintenance during the period. Sulphide copper grades of 0.73% for Q1 were in line with mine sequence expectations. We continue to expect higher copper grades to return in 2027. As Mantos Blancos continues to deliver stabilized results, we are preparing for the next phase of growth as we work towards submitting an EIA permit application in Q2 for our Phase 2, followed by the release of a prefeasibility study expected in Q3. Moving north, we will now discuss Pinto Valley on Slide 15, which produced 10,711 tonnes of copper at C1 cash cost of $3.46 per payable pound during Q1. This is the third quarter in a row of improved cash cost at Pinto Valley. In Q1, we experienced unplanned maintenance at the filter plant and the concentrate storage facility. We are prioritizing increasing operational capacity through our people strategy and asset management framework. On the human resources front, we made progress this quarter filling a number of key roles at site, including the site maintenance manager, the tailings and water manager and a health, safety and environmental manager. During Q1, we also progressed improvements to our operations management systems, including better tracking of KPIs around maintenance schedule compliance and operational targets. We are planning for an approximately 10-day maintenance shutdown in Q3 to rebuild the primary crusher mainframe and enhance the filter plant and concentrate storage areas. In addition to near-term reliability enhancement initiatives currently underway, this is expected to reduce unplanned mill maintenance issues and support more stable plant operations. It has been a hot start to the year in Arizona, and we continue to monitor our water balance, including performing water simulations that incorporate the past 30 years of precipitation data. At this stage, we do not anticipate production-related impacts from drought conditions like in 2025. Cozamin delivered another quarter of reliable, consistent results in Q1, as shown on Slide 16. The operation produced 5,930 tonnes of copper at record low C1 cash cost of $0.71 per payable pound, benefiting from higher silver byproducts, which continue to represent a tailwind for the rest of 2026. Strong operating margins drove record quarterly EBITDA of $65 million for Q1. Throughout this year, we will continue to conduct exploration to evaluate the potential for mine life extensions or improvements to the production profile. And with that, I'd like to pass it back to Cashel.

Thanks, Jim. Turning now to Slide 18. During Q1, we continued to progress our exploration programs, building on the strong foundation we established in 2025. Our initial 2-year exploration program at Mantoverde has reached a completion rate of 94% with 5 drill rigs currently operating on site. We plan on sharing more results from this program later this year. At Santo Domingo, 4 drill rigs are on site with the goal of delineating oxide mineralization while also testing potential sulphide extensions. We haven't started drilling at Sierra Norte. The team has been busy progressing the re-assay program, geochemical sampling and geophysical surveying in preparation for the 19,000 meter drill program planned later this year. Overall, in 2026, we are focusing our exploration efforts on advancing upside opportunities or incremental copper production in the Mantoverde Santo Domingo district, especially those eligible for contingent consideration under our joint venture arrangement. Our team is eager to unlock the significant value of this region through exploration in pursuit of our strategy of building a world-class long-life copper district in Chile. Moving to Slide 19. At Santo Domingo, we continue to progress the remaining work streams required before making a sanctioning decision expected in Q4 of this year. This includes evaluating the optimal financing strategy in collaboration with our joint venture partner. Based on the work performed to date, we feel confident that we will be able to achieve attractive terms in the current environment. We also continue to progress detailed engineering to approximately 60% completion as well as advancing upside opportunities and potential infrastructure opportunities. We will continue to strengthen our financial position, particularly during this period of strong commodity prices by deleveraging through internally generated cash flows and reducing our net debt leverage further prior to a sanctioning decision. In addition to advancing Santo Domingo, on Slide 20, we have highlighted our priorities for execution during 2026, consistent with what we communicated at the start of the year. Each of these represent an opportunity to deliver value. As Jim discussed, the team at Mantoverde is hard at work upgrading the plant to sustain 45,000 tonnes per day, funded through internally generated cash flows. We also made good progress towards submitting the Mantos Blancos Phase 2 EIA permit and releasing the study. The brownfield expansions ongoing in Chile are great examples of the type of growth we'd like to execute as soon as possible. Finally, on Slide 21, you can see our clear path to transformational growth, which is well aligned with the copper outlook supported by fundamental demand drivers and emerging trends. This reinforces the importance of continuing to accelerate our growth to deliver value. Beyond our permitted growth of Mantoverde Optimize and Santo Domingo stands a strong pipeline of low-risk, high-return projects. Our organic growth opportunities are unique as they are located in the same top-tier mining jurisdictions as our existing operations, allowing us to leverage real experience to mitigate project execution risk. This includes a brownfield expansion opportunity at Mantos Blancos, which we are working to move into the permitted category, optionality to unlock incremental copper production in the MVSD district and the potential doubling of throughput at Mantoverde. At Capstone, we are proud to have created a peer-leading pipeline supported by a resilient diversified foundation of operating mines. As we progress through 2026, we remain focused on delivering safe and stable results towards our unchanged annual guidance, and we are committed to strengthening our balance sheet and responsibly advancing our organic growth projects. We are well positioned to become a leading long-life, low-cost copper producer, playing an important role in providing the copper the world needs now and into the future. And with that, we are now ready to take questions.

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Orest Wowkodaw with Scotiabank.

I was hoping to get some more color about the copper cathodes, just given the sulfur price environment. Given that your -- the cathode operations are already significantly high on the cost curve, do you have full flexibility to pause that, say, if these high asset pricing continues into '27 and '28? And are there any potential impacts to the sulphide mining if you pause on the oxide?

Yes. Thanks, Orest, for the question. It's certainly something that's got a lot of our attention now. Just to clarify, we've been assured by our providers that really the supply of acid isn't an issue. Really, what we're exposed to is the cost. And as you sort of pointed out, the cost of acid is pushing up against what one could perceive as a pretty high cost when you take all the costs in. The purposes of the integrated operations, certainly at Mantoverde, the stripping of the oxide material is part of the normal stripping required to expose the sulphide for the sulphide process plant. And so one way or the other, we're bearing some of that under a fixed cost. So that's part of the consideration we're looking at. This material, this oxide material is a high consumer of acid. With that being said, the first half of this year, more or less, as Raman alluded to in his commentary is: that the first 6 months were sort of fixed in our asset cost more or less and we become more exposed to spot acid near the end of the year. However, there is buoyancy and that's in the copper price. And so, while the asset price has gone up, we're maintaining some margin of profitability against the copper price. So it's not only the asset price that we're focused on. It's also the realized spot price that we're selling our cathode for and the premium we get for it. I don't know, Raman, did you want to add some more to...

Yes. Some of the COMEX we've sold forward into contracts at a premiums that and there was the arb earlier, which has kind of shrunk away. But also when you're looking at C1 or just on the cathode look higher, but we take kind of a full costing method. So when we're in a mixed pit with sulphide, you work your way through the oxide to the sulphide, we've allocated the mining cost between the 2 tonnages coming out. When we look at it from a pause or moment, we do an incremental analysis. And then you say basically, you would incur the mining cost anyways when you go up to the top of the pit, we decide that we take it to the leach or should we take it to the waste dump. And if you do that at both sites, it probably knocks off about $0.60 to $0.70 a pound of the numbers like we have in our MD&A. So that's quite a bit of a difference to when you're looking at the breakeven cost of the cathodes.

Can I assume you're fully exposed to market prices for assets starting in '27?

Correct.

And just finally, where -- can you give us a sense of where spot asset pricing is right now in Chile?

Yes. It was about $400. It's bumped up to about $420, $430 right now today -- I hope today.

So it's continued to rise?

Yes.

And the next question comes from the line of Ralph Profiti with Stifel.

Thanks for the added color on the cathodes. Jim and Cashel, on Pinto Valley, you said the hot start having to manage the water balance. What's the strategy around securing extra water storage? Are you in rationing mode? Is that playing into the strategy? And how much of a buffer is there on the guidance with respect to what we saw in Q1 and the current drought conditions?

Yes. I'll start and then Jim could add some detail. The -- what I would say is, it's not -- it's requisite on anyone operating in the American Southwest that they ration and they value water, either their sources or their return water. And so we've been on a continuous improvement process of improving our water return from our tailings stand and then so too on the security of the storage empowerment areas we have. We have a particular advantage this year during the drought season and next year during the drought season, which will give us runway to be able to address some of the infrastructure issues that require some time and remedy and maintenance time to be able to address some losses of water in those systems. And that's -- that we're doing a pushback in the open pit at Pinto Valley. That pushback is what we call our Northwest wall. It's where we've stopped deepening the mine for the moment, and that will last over the next 18 months or so, where we push back the upper Northwest wall, and we're getting our ore from it. So that's allowing us to use the pit itself as a storage of water. And compared to normal, we can store almost 50% more water. When we sort of do the back calculation that was equipped like what Jim had in his narrative during the phone call, that allows us to sort of what I call drought-proof ourselves for a similar situation as last year. So last year, we were impacted quite severely by the drought because our storage facilities didn't have the amount of water we're currently storing now. So what we would say is, the month of March or -- was probably warmer than typical. However, April is actually cooler than normal. We were told today by our GM. And so far, the forecast, I'm not sure how accurate the forecasts are, but it's looking like May 2 will be a little cooler on the macro forecast going ahead. So with that, it gives us a lot more confidence we'll have the amount of water to mitigate the loss of production we experienced last year and therefore, have that uptime at our plant and not the downtime due to lack of water. Now Jim, did you want to add any more to that?

Just in addition to that, a couple of comments. As I mentioned in the presentation, a key thing is leadership. We have been going through some changes. We have a specific new manager position in the tailings and water area, which we didn't have before, which is key and also supported by a new maintenance manager, which will help so much in having the security that the assets are going to work as we need them to and that operations has the uptime to do what they need to do with them. Cashel did mention related to the TSF construction, sand production is very important. As we increase sand production, we get better water return from the tailings area. And as we mentioned, I think it was last -- well, in fourth quarter, we've been making continuous investments in our water wells. We've been looking for more water wells with pile holes. And also, we've invested in the connection piping to make sure that we're getting that water to the plant in a related area. So apart from the massive drought situation, which is kind of hard to deal with, I think we've really done a lot of work to be able to withstand the variability of weather. But as I would always mention in Pinto Valley, our real focus is on uptime in the process plant. For those of you who have been following Capstone for a few years, there was a lot of work going on in the milling section for a long time in the milling motors, and then we slowly stepped to the extremities. Right now, some of our downtime in Q1 was caused around the primary crusher, and it was also caused at the back end of the concentrate management area and the filter area. These are 2 areas that we have planned for major shutdowns. But in that path to get the parts and get the materials that are required to have a rebuild in those 2 areas, we may have some downtime. We're not planning for it, but it's really our focus on that -- on the maintainability of those circuits to get us to the third quarter and to have a successful year in Pinto Valley.

And the next question comes from the line of Daniel Morgan with Barrenjoey.

Just a quick question on how has April been tracking so far across the various operations? I mean we're basically done with April?

And certainly, thanks for the question. It's been going quite well, I would say. Cozamin steady as usual. Antos Blancos, good throughput. We did have a scheduled shutdown at Mantoverde during April. And so that was part and parcel of the guidance we put out. However, we've been getting extremely good throughput irrespective of that. And while the nameplate capacity and what we budgeted was 32,000 tonnes a day, they were up closer to sort of to like 38,000 tonnes a day as a realization. So that's a real testament to the team there on how they're doing at that metallurgical complex. And I'll sort of just plug them also on their consistency on achieving recoveries also. Due to the strike and some various blending, we had little lower grades at Mantoverde, but they were able to offset and achieve a great recovery during the first quarter and maintain that through April. We're doing a little better at Pinto Valley than what we did in the first quarter, and that's now where we're sort of approaching -- we've improved on the first quarter performance, and we're edging our way up to where we think we should be, and we're sort of approaching around 44,000 tonnes a day for April there. So everything is moving and trending in the right direction.

Just on the diesel and acid, I mean, I know we've talked about the cost stuff, but just more the assurance on getting it. And I guess I'm a little bit more worried about sulfuric acid. Can you just touch on how your team is looking through your supply chain, what assurances you have that you can get the acid you need? And then maybe you could also touch on perspectives on the industry and what industry impacts we might see ahead on supply.

Yes. It's definitely a bifurcated sort of issue. There's obviously Orest's question focused on the cost issue. Here in the Americas, we're just a little different supply and logistics routes than what Australia or Asia might be in or Africa to that measure. Where we source it from are the sort of the local smelters in Peru and Chile. We do have some offshore supply. We've gone through -- we have about -- between traders and suppliers, we probably have a list of 8 different ones that supply us acid to our operations. And of all of them, we were only exposed to this year about 10% of our acid requirements coming from China. And we've been told by those suppliers or traders that we're going to maybe source that small amount that they've been successful in sourcing it from elsewhere. So we are exposed to the cost, but we've got very strong confidence in our suppliers and traders that we'll be able to source to our operations through the balance of this year, the assets. So really, I think it's just a different narrative in the Americas than it might be sort of in Africa or Asia or Australasia to that matter. So it's a different sort of paradigm. So again, our risk is more on exposure to cost than supply as we have these conversations with those suppliers and traders.

And just on the question earlier, I think, at the top of the call, which was if you do discretionarily decide to reduce production from this -- from your cathodes. You do have surplus capacity to maybe in your SX-EW circuits to like just hammer the production. So could you just stockpile the oxide ore and then at a future date when acid supply comes down, could you increase production discretionarily?

Yes, there are many levers. And so there is a certain proportion, and we've done it in the past. We've had -- since my 4 years' experience here at Capstone Copper, we've had occasions where some of the long-haul low-grade oxide or high acid consuming oxide but we've decreased in the past some of the delivery to heat or dump, specifically at Mantoverde. So we do have, within the mine plan, opportunistic options in the future to be able to evaluate those, and our teams are evaluating those. We don't see the necessity now. As I sort of mentioned to Orest, there is that ratio of the price of copper and the premium to the price of copper we get relative to the rise. And if we still see a margin, then it's worthwhile because some of those costs would need to be borne irrespective in the stripping profile, as Raman was explaining, to access the sulphide that we require. There's the technological advances that we have. There are several. Part of our MV-O is a BIOX leaching, which will reduce some of the dependency on acid. But even more exciting is in the next couple of years, I know it's not for this year, but we've spoken in the past about our pyrite agglomeration and the substitution that pyrite has in our active heap leach to offset some of the requirements of acid. And that will be to the tune of about 1/3 or 30% offset of the sulfuric acid requirements to leach to provide the same leach kinetics to the oxide mineral. So that's an exciting one. That's -- sometimes we talk about as we are now as a sort of a sulfur abatement program, which could present in the order of 30% less required acid. But the obvious byproduct credit that we get provided with that also is our cobalt ambitions to be able to produce at Mantoverde some 1,100 tonnes of cobalt a year. And in the future, close to 4,000 tonnes of cobalt out of Santo Domingo. So that's another project that we're quickly looking at trying to bring forward to be able to offset some of these asset prices.

And the next question comes from the line of Fahad Tariq with Jefferies.

I just wanted to ask about Cozamin. There was a media article talking about potentially divesting that asset. I'm cognizant there's only so much you can share, but just thoughts around the asset and hypothetically, if it were sold, what would be the use of proceeds?

Yes, we've certainly seen those articles, too. Just as a sort of blanket statement, those are speculation by the market and the process. We've always sort of stated that we're a holder of a portfolio and rationalizing and evaluating our portfolio, whether it's our -- as we was talking about just now or what can we do with the oxide operations at Mantoverde and Mantos Blancos. There's always speculation that the Cozamin may or may not be an opportunity for sale in the future. I can say what it is, is Cozamin is our steadiest producer. It always creates a margin, and those margins are terrific, especially at these high metal prices. So I'd have to say that in the past, we've had unsolicited bids. We're always evaluating our portfolio. Strategically, we're always considering options. If somebody came forward and knocked our socks off, we'd have to consider it. But right now, they're -- we're so happy with the way Cozamin is performing. There are some options for mine expansion and mine life expansion. So it remains a critical piece of our cash flows. If, like you said, under the consideration that it was for sale, obviously, it would just go to bolstering our balance sheet for the delivery of our growth ambitions in the future, potentially, we could raise less debt and deliver some growth ambition like Santo Domingo is probably the best use of that capital in our portfolio if it became available.

And then maybe just switching gears to Santo Domingo. One of the criteria for FID was observing macro trends. Is there anything that's happened so far this year, whether it's the copper price volatility, sulfuric acid, which I guess maybe doesn't apply to Santo Domingo. But anything else you're seeing that maybe changes your views on Santo Domingo going forward or not yet?

Look, there -- we're always sort of watching those macro things. So just to begin with, what I'll say is, is it doesn't change the actions we need to take place. We sort of said in the narrative here that it's likely a Q4 decision. And that's because we have a number of tasks we need to complete to derisk the sanctioning and FID of Santo Domingo. One is progress and mature the engineering of the project. Another is to determine what infrastructure is in or out and under what scheme are we building it, whether it's a design, build, operate, a BOOT contract or utilizing existing infrastructure that is within the district. All of those are pretty big swings at what the ultimate CapEx requirement for raising to deliver something like Santo Domingo. So it doesn't change what we're doing to get ready for Q4. I think what you're asking me is, if we were in Q4 now and under the current conditions, what would we do? What I would sort of say is, is when you run the sensitivities in the spider diagrams on a project like Santo Domingo, the steepest curve is the copper price and the copper price is very strong and the long-term of the copper price is very strong. So there is a strong impetus for us to continue with the activities we have such that we're ready by the fourth quarter to bring to our Board a financing decision.

And the next question comes from the line of Craig Hutchison with TD Cowen.

Just on Pinto Valley, Cashel in your remarks, you mentioned throughput is back up to around 44,000 tonnes a day. Curious once you get through the maintenance in Q3, what are you trying to exit the year on throughput? And then just the grades were a bit higher than I expected in Q1. Are those kind of grades around the 0.36 level, 8% recoveries? Are those sort of sustainable into Q2 here?

Look, that Northwest wall, we've been experiencing a little higher grade than we thought. So I think it's probably early yet to say that we'll sustain those grades. A lot has to do with dilution control and management, I think they're a little high, to be honest with you. They're probably going to come down a little, those grades. So yes, I think it was sort of -- it wasn't opportunistic. It was more, I guess, fortunate that we saw those during this period of time. As per the ambition, look, when I look at the instantaneous capacity of the plant, it's somewhere in the order of 62,000 tonnes a day. The reality is a plant of that vintage, what you can expect is sort of a 90% utilization rate. And that's a factor of a combination of planned and unplanned maintenance. I think with a plant of that vintage, you always have to have that component of unplanned. So at 90% utilization, that would mean the best you could sustain production over a period of time would be about 56,000 tonnes a day. I think that's a little ambitious to think we can get there by the end of the year based on the challenges we've had in the past. But I can tell you, the team is very focused on that sort of target of around 55,000 tonnes a day. I think though, if you handicapped it, made it more reasonable, if we achieved sort of 52,000 to 53,000 tonnes a day coming out of the last quarter, that would be a strong achievement.

And just on Mantoverde, good to see the sequential uptick in recoveries there. Do you feel like you've really turned the corner there, the 91% you guys reported there in March. Maybe just can you just talk what those improvements have been? Is it more how you guys have managed the pit? Or is it more the than the reagents and you feel like you kind of sustain those type of levels in the low 90s?

Yes, Craig, I'll let Jim answer that because his team is pretty close to it.

Yes. That's a great question. I don't think we're going to be strained too far off where we thought the midpoint of the guidance would be if you want to think about the ranges of where Mantoverde should be from a planning perspective. We have been able to, over time, take advantage of more uptime and stability in the plant, and it just makes it a little bit easier to be able to tweak and look for recoveries that we need to. And also in the mine, we are getting to the point where you've been following us for a while when we were having some difficulties. I think it was the beginning of the 2025. We were running through a mixed ore zone. Now we're like at the base of the mine. We're in a very good part of the cycle. We have a lot of clean mineralization. That also helps a bit as well. So these things as well, they come in cycles, this is something we really have to get a hold of on our 5-year planning to make sure that we're not getting surprised with that altered material or oxidized material as we did at the beginning of 2025. But really, we're in a good spot right now for the recovery. So it's just the focus on the throughput and making sure that we're clearly targeted at our full year guidance with the ongoing work that we have at the same time in the MV-O project.

And the next question comes from the line of Anita Soni with CIBC World Markets.

I was just wondering if you could provide a little bit more color on the process of getting a partner for the port infrastructure at Santo Domingo?

Yes, sure. I'd love to. Yes. And with that, that's the real swing factor in this project. We published in 2024, the fall of 2024, our technical report that was based on 2023 dollars. So our base case always assumed a BOOT contract on the desal plant. So that capital was never part of the original estimate. And that total capital outlined a project about $2.3 billion and self-perform and build a port. So in that particular study, the port was about $300 million. We expect escalation, obviously, since 2023 dollars. And one of the big components that we can affect is either use an existing port in the region, and there are existing port owners in the region, but the most proximal one is owned by a Chilean iron ore company. What I can say is there's dual interest in utilizing port capacity, any of the ports to increase product through it to increase the efficiencies of those ports. So we're inspecting that. That's been an opportunity that has been available to us. So what I can say is we're continually negotiating the probable access to those existing ports within the region for the copper concentrate out of Santo Domingo and the iron concentrate out of Santo Domingo. Balance with that, we need a base case that we can rely on, which is either self-perform on a port or much like what we considered with the desal plant, the BOOT contract on it. And there are a number of parties that are interested in bidding on the opportunity to either build and own a desal plant on our concession and/or a port on our concession with the aim to offer the services and the capacity in those to other future users of the port and/or the desal plant. So there are a number of iterations. There are probably 4 or 5 different iterations that are in advance negotiating stages. And really, in the next couple of months, we hope to be in a position to sort of wrap up what we're going ahead as our preferred negotiated alternative is.

My next question was on time line, but thanks in the next couple of months, we should expect to hear something?

Yes, that's right.

And the next question comes from the line of Emerson Vieira with Goldman Sachs.

So just a quick follow-up here on Santo Domingo. As the company advanced the engineering program, you guys are now at 60% complete. What are your thoughts on the updated CapEx estimates? What can you share with us in terms of installation risks or labor? I mean, anything could be helpful here.

Yes. I mean we're midstream. I've done a number of these major projects and CapEx estimations. And as you mature the engineering, which the 60% is actually targeted for September of this year, that's when you start driving down the certainty on the scope of elements of the work breakdown structure with respect to the contingency and the quotation. So there's -- we receive quotes every day, and we're updating every day what the CapEx requirement is. What I would say is, is what we're not surprised by is that our original estimate of $2.3 billion was in 2023 dollars, and there is relative escalation per annum on that in sort of low single digits and compounded, that was probably somewhere between 10% and 15% escalation on the design and scope of what that project was, recognizing that the scope of that project was at a feasibility level, and there are certain guidelines around what contingency is considered around the feasibility level. So our best path forward here is to continue with the detailed engineering, get the detailed vendor quotes in such that we narrow down the contingency and add up what the total CapEx is, and for saying what the total CapEx would be as per the last question around the off-site infrastructure really is the biggest swing around this. If we look at a port that could cost between $300 million or $400 million if we make a deal on the current port, well, then that would reduce the CapEx by that amount requirement. Obviously, the OpEx comes in to offset a little higher than owning your own port. So I think it's premature right now to be able to say exactly what that CapEx number is. But certainly, we see that the very robust returns irrespective of the strategy we'll choose with Santo Domingo copper project coming online.

The next question comes from the line of Ben Wood with UBS.

I've just got a quick one on MV-O, please. So in the release, you've said that most of the MV-O tie-ins are expected to be completed in the third quarter during the planned shut. Just wanted a little bit more color around the risk, whether this presents much risk for the remaining activities in 4Q and whether sort of global supply chains at the moment are going to perhaps place these deadlines at further risk. So I just wanted to talk about that, if you could, please.

Yes. Thanks. Look, what we're doing in Q1 and Q2 is site prep, pouring cement, placing rebar, e-rooms, pipelines, everything. This augmentation of the capacity of the Mantoverde process plant is pretty straightforward. It's about larger diameter pipes, larger pumps and the required energy to manage those, so transformers and e-rooms to be delivered to be able to distribute that. Yes, that tie-in is about a 15-day shutdown in late August of this year. Right now, we're on time, on schedule. I happened to be at the site last week or 2 weeks ago, I should say, and much of the material is being delivered and being received. We don't see, again, much like the asset and even more so with the delivery of the componentry required. We have validation from those suppliers that we're on time with deliveries. We're on time with manufacturing. We're on time with the fab testing of e-rooms, et cetera. So we don't anticipate any delays at this stage. The real activities happen in Q2 and Q3, where we increased the number of workers on site to be able to execute it. But really, it's not a major risk to any of the componentry that would affect what our Q4 ambitions are for Mantoverde due to delays on goods being received. We just don't see that in the equation as of yet.

And the last question comes from the line of Stefan Ioannou with ATB Cormark.

Maybe just following up on MV-O. And I don't want to put the cart ahead of the horse here given the progress you're making there. But just wondering, is there any update or just, I guess, color as to looking beyond MV-O and a potential Phase 2 expansion at Mantoverde, if there's anything specifically going on, on that front right now? Or is it kind of all hands on deck with regards to MV-O at the moment?

Yes, Stefan, thanks. The -- look, this is what the 4 drills that are turning in MV-O, that's what they're focused on is, one, upgrading the 1 billion tonnes of resource that currently exists there, delineating it such that we can move it either into indicated or measured. And we actually have been speaking with Peter quite recently about what can we do to either extend the mine life currently at Mantoverde and provide more tailings room. So we're looking at those opportunities. But really, all this drilling is an aim to prove up the reserves such that we can validate that Mantoverde should merit an expansion. And what we envision is doubling the size of the plant to move it from 45,000 tonnes a day to 90,000 tonnes a day. So I think it's later this year or actually, it's into next year, I think, is when we'll have those reserves ready this time next year, I believe it is, where we see the merits of those -- that mine planning and upgrading of that drilling we're currently doing and completing to see what that reserve or -- well, I guess it's more or less that infill drilling to upgrade the inferred resource and then therefore, what does the future stripping look like. At the same time, we have a program underway on the remaining 10 kilometers of unexplored strike length, where we're testing geochemical and coincident geophysical anomalies such that we can see are there other satellite deposits on our current concessions that we could bring into that mine plan also. I'd say it's a little early yet. We have an aim and an ambition, obviously, with the endowment of 1 billion tonnes of inferred resource to upgrade that, that we believe conceptually will be sufficient to merit the construction and doubling the size of the throughput at Mantoverde. But I'd say we have a considerable amount of drilling yet to do that. But like I said, we're looking forward to being able to disclose the drilling we have and show how that has upgraded our current inferred resource maybe to the indicated category in certain areas of the mine.

Times ahead in terms of even more growth then.

We have no further questions at this time. I would like to turn it back to Cashel Meagher for closing remarks.

Thank you, operator. We look forward to updating you in July with our Q2 results. Until then, stay safe. Feel free to reach out to Daniel, Michael or Claire, if you have any further questions. Thanks for your continued support, and have a good evening or a great day.

Thank you, presenters. And ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you all for joining. You may now disconnect.