Taseko Mines Limited
Q4 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 25 Feb 2021

[Operator:]

Good morning. My name is Veronica, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Taseko Mines Q4 and Year End Earnings and Production Results Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers' remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. Thank you. Taseko, you may begin your conference.

[Brian Bergot:]

Thank you, Veronica. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining to Taseko's fourth quarter and year end 2020 conference call. The news release announcing our financial and operational results was issued yesterday after market close and is available on our website, tasekomines.com.

[Russell Hallbauer:]

Thank you, Brian. Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. My comments will be relatively brief, as I'm sure you want to listen to Stuart and Bryce and both are operating and financial results, as lots have occurred in these areas over the last year. So I'll just generally speak a bit about where we are as a company. Generally, our strategic plan over the years has been to stay within our means. And I've spoken many times on these quarterly calls about that. We run our mining operations at the highest level we can and the lowest operating costs we can achieve. And on top of that, we ensure that our capital discipline is the number one priority for us. Over the years, this in turn should allow us to take advantage of the opportunities that come with a cyclical business such as the one we are in. We've had some pretty tough times. And during those tough times, we've acquired our pipeline of assets. We bought them when copper prices were low. And our entry costs were also low. So we've always looked for long-life low-cost assets. And we have a large stable of them. We have a plan to build out and develop them, when conditions present themselves. And we have waited for the correct time. And in this business that is - patience is difficult to come by, because of outside forces. But here we are, on the cusp of some exciting times with the metal prices. And those are exciting times for our management team and our shareholders, as we enjoy this present copper price regime we've been waiting for.

[Stuart McDonald:]

Okay. Thanks, Russ, and good morning, everyone. And thanks for joining our fourth quarter earnings call. We did actually announce our copper production and EBITDA estimated in early January. So that part was really news yesterday, but with copper prices now over $4 a pound number of other positive developments in our business recently. It's definitely an exciting time for us. And I wanted to start spend a few minutes just to review the last year and it was certainly a memorable one for many reasons. Firstly at Gibraltar, as always, our primary focus is on the health and safety of our employees. And our response to the COVID pandemic in March was evidence of that commitment to workplace protocols that we implemented, kept the operation running smoothly and our staff safely employed. And while we've had a few COVID cases recently within our workforce, we haven't had any issues and new operational disruptions. We're also proud of the fact that we had zero lost time incidents at Gibraltar last year. When the copper price dropped last March, we took quick action to adjust our cost structure. And those initiatives resulted in about $30 million of cost savings in Q2 and Q3. We made those operational adjustments without any impact on copper production, without any employee layoffs and without jeopardizing our long-term mine plan. So it definitely demonstrates the flexibility that we have at Gibraltar and the value of a long life stable operation in a good jurisdiction. We produced 123 million pounds of copper for the year at a cash cost of $1.92 a pound and that led to operating cash flows of $106 million and adjusted EBITDA of $108 million for the year. We also made very good progress at Florence over the last year. This is a very valuable asset that is going to dramatically change Taseko's copper production and cost profile in the near future. The test work that we've completed has been an important de-risking step and increasing our operational understanding and also validating many of the key assumptions from the feasibility study.

[Bryce Hamming:]

Thanks, Stuart. Good morning, everyone. For the fourth quarter we reported earnings for mine operations before depletion and amortization of $27 million and adjusted EBITDA of $20.5 million. Earnings this quarter continued to benefit from the recovering copper price, which averaged $3.25 per pound for the quarter. Taseko also had a further $8 million in upward provisional copper price adjustments included in revenue has resulted in the average realized price of $3.69 per pound in our revenue. We had sales of 25 million pounds, which is similar to our production, and we continue to keep our concentrate inventory low at the end of December, which ended at 3.4 million pounds. Total site operating costs came in a bit higher this quarter at US$2.82 per pound, and it was higher than the previous quarters on a per pound basis as a result of a few things. First, we had lower copper production. There was also $0.36 cents attributed to inventory for 4 stockpiles which grew over the quarter, actually throughout 2020. And we also had higher costs in our finished goods inventory. Those together increased by $8 million in the quarter. There's also less mining costs being capitalized as work focused in the Pollyanna pit, only $1.2 million that was related to work in the Gibraltar pit.

[Operator:]

Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question-and-answer session. Your first question comes from Mike Kozak with Cantor Fitzgerald. Please go ahead.

[Mike Kozak:]

Yeah. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking my questions. A couple from me. First, is that, do you expect to have to wait for Michael Regan, who's I think the new head of the EPA and presumably his new incoming team, to have to review all the in-progress approvals before Florence receives the UIC? And, I guess, what I'm asking is that, when you say the UIC permit by midyear, is that the assumption that you're making?

[Richard Tremblay:]

Yeah, Mike. It's Richard Tremblay here. So we do not foresee any delays with EPA reviewing or finalizing the permit and commencing. Like the process is it gets issued for draft - gets issued on the draft, and then it's out for public comment. And then, those public - at the end of the public comment period, there's a hearing. Comments are made. EPA will adjust the draft permit if required, based on some of the comments received and then we'll issue it, but we don't foresee any delay or any issues there.

[Mike Kozak:]

Okay, okay, that's helpful. And then, my second one is just on the Florence financing here. So I just look at the numbers. So initial CapEx $230 million. You got $400 million now, less than $250 million from the bond refi, so $150 million net. So call it an US$80 million funding gap, excluding what you have on your balance sheet in cash now or just from the last quarter. And just by my estimates at current copper prices, basically 2 quarters of cash flow from Gibraltar. So my question is that over - Stuart's been saying over the last probably 6 quarters, one of the financing options was either a JV partner or even selling a royalty to finance Florence. Can I - I want to confirm that, I mean, this is no longer being considered, I could imagine, right, given where copper prices are and the fact that funding gap is so small?

[Russell Hallbauer:]

Well, I think you've got the handle on the numbers. I mean, we've got - as we said, in our script, we've got US$200 million of cash in hand today. We're generating good cash flow from Gibraltar. CapEx of Florence is relatively low, with only $230 million. So, yeah, we think we're in a very strong position. We definitely have the ability to fund this project on our own and own it 100%. We are continuing discussions with a few select JV partners. We're going to see how those discussions play out. We still think that the potential to maybe sell a minority stake at something based off of NPV, $700 million NPV or higher at today's prices, if we can do a very accretive transaction with a minority stake, then that's something we may consider doing. But if we don't get the valuation that we want, as you say, we have many other options to fund this and own it ourselves on a 100% basis. So we're in a much stronger position today, obviously. And frankly, kind of looking back, we're glad that we didn't do a transaction last year, because we're in a much stronger position today and have many more options. So sometimes it's the deals that you don't do that work out well for you.

[Mike Kozak:]

I completely agree. That's good to hear. Okay. Thanks, everyone. That's all for me.

[Operator:]

Thank you very much. Your next question comes from Craig Hutchison with TD Securities. Please go ahead.

[Craig Hutchison:]

Hi, good morning, guys. My question is on Gibraltar. We did see the mining rates pick up here in Q4. Can we expect similar mining rates through the balance of this year that we saw in Q4?

[Russell Hallbauer:]

When you refer to mining rates, total material moved?

[Craig Hutchison:]

Yeah, total material moved. Maybe, if you can give me some context on strip ratios as well that'd be helpful.

[Richard Tremblay:]

Yeah. So, Craig, Richard Tremblay here. Yeah, mining rates will continue similar to Q4 rates for this year.

[Craig Hutchison:]

Okay. And in terms of grades, I know you guys are guiding for higher grades in the back-half of this year, but just kind of going into Q1, should we expect that somewhere into Q4 or are you guys already in a higher grade portion right now?

[Richard Tremblay:]

Yeah, so the production profile for the year, roughly 45% of our production will be in the first half of the year and 55% into the second half.

[Craig Hutchison:]

Okay, great. Thanks. And in Florence as well, just a follow-up question on the permitting, I know you guys target with your Q3 results to have all the permits in hand, so early 2021, now it's sort of midyear. Can you just provide some context of why that timeline is slipped on the EPA front?

[Russell Hallbauer:]

Government.

[Stuart McDonald:]

The timeline really, it was impacted by a number of different things. But there is no set timeline, so it's a process that needs to be run through. And, best estimate is really what we look at. COVID-19 played a factor. Response is back on the treatment plan for the historic properties that are on site that we have to deal with, were slow in coming back from the consulting parties and a number of things like that impacted us. But the process continues to advance, just not as fast as we originally thought.

[Craig Hutchison:]

Okay. And then just last one question. I think that the CapEx guidance now is around US$240 million, is that correct?

[Stuart McDonald:]

US$230 million is the number.

[Craig Hutchison:]

US$230 million?

[Stuart McDonald:]

Yeah, yeah.

[Craig Hutchison:]

Okay. You guys are feeling pretty confident of that, just given where fuel prices have gone recently in the U.S.?

[Stuart McDonald:]

Yeah, we've looked at that. We're reasonably confident that that would include there is some assumptions in there about reclamation bonding. And a portion of those, of the bonding will be covered by surety bonds. And there is some working capital in there. But, generally, we're comfortable with that estimate.

[Craig Hutchison:]

I appreciate you guys.

[Russell Hallbauer:]

Greg, the more engineering you do, the better refinement you get on your cost. So, although we've been delayed with the permitting, and last year, certainly, the delay in the permitting, like Stuart said, certainly just blended into the whole where we were in the copper price cycle and that kind of stuff. But at the same time, we were refining our engineering studies and getting more details in terms of overall engineering costs. And when that happens, you can really focus in on your capital expenditures.

[Craig Hutchison:]

Okay, great, guys. Thank you for taking my questions.

[Operator:]

Thank you very much.

[Stuart McDonald:]

Okay. Operator, yeah - operator, if there's no further questions, yeah, we can wrap up the call here. And thanks again, everyone, for joining and we'll talk to you again in May after our first quarter. Thanks again. Bye, everyone.

[Russell Hallbauer:]

See you.

[Operator:]

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes your conference call for today. We thank you for participating and ask that you please disconnect your lines. Thank you. Have a good day.