Ero Copper (ERO) investor day, September 14, 2026 transcript

Welcome everybody. Thank you for joining us this afternoon. I'm very excited to be hosting what is our first official Capital Markets Day here in Sao Paulo. We have an exciting week ahead. We're starting here in Sao Paulo with this event, our Capital Markets Day, and then throughout the week, many of you will be joining us across our operations to see the transformation that's taking place at Ero Copper.

I think just to start quickly on what I see is the four main themes from today's presentation. And as we transition the week at operations, number one, transformation. I have a lot of our leadership team here from around the world to talk about the transformation that's happening in people, culture, and our operations, and something that we call One Arrow. And we'll talk a little bit about what that means all throughout this week. The second is the performance against our stated objectives back in 2025. I'm incredibly proud of the work that our teams are doing, particularly around deleveraging, and Wayne will speak to that in more detail.

The third thing is the quality of our operating portfolio and some of the technology that we're implementing across all of our assets to improve safety and improve performance, and Jeltsin will speak to that in more detail. And last, but certainly not least, and I don't want to steal too much of Mike's thunder, we'll be talking about the portfolio that we've put together at Arrow that includes development asset, producing bonds, development assets, and a variety of early-stage exploration opportunities that complements what I think is a portfolio that's going to continue to create shareholder value for a long period of time to come. Just quickly, you know, we're here in Sao Paulo. We had the option as a company to host this event anywhere in the world, and we chose Sao Paulo for a couple different reasons.

Number one, our Brazilian heritage, clearly. It's convenient for starting an analyst tour here. But more fundamentally, I think there's few places in the world today where you have such a strong intersection of public equity markets, venture capital, particularly around technology, and also in Brazil, a big push on critical minerals. And all those things are important to Ero, and we'll explain why that is as we go forward here. Some of these statistics might be more familiar to those in this room, but for those of you who are dialing in, a couple of quick, interesting facts about Sao Paulo. So, Apollo features Latin America's largest exchange, over $1 trillion of combined market cap. It's home to more than 12,000 startup companies that last year raised over $5 billion in venture capital, primarily in forward-facing technologies like artificial intelligence and automation.

And last but not least, talking about critical minerals, IBRAM, the National Mining Agency of Brazil, anticipates that over the next five years, there will be $80 billion invested in Brazil in mining projects, $20 billion of which will be critical minerals projects. So you have all these things happening in Sao Paulo, and that's why you're here today. So again, thank you for joining. Very excited about today and this week. Starting quickly here with disclaimer language, we, everyone on the stage will for sure be making forward-looking statements, so please, this is posted on our website, please read those forward-looking statements when you have the opportunity.

The agenda for today, again, starting with myself to provide some context on today's events, we'll continue with Jelson who walked through some of the operations. We'll talk a little about Furnas as well. Jocelyn will speak to Furnas and some of the progress we're making there. Mike will talk about some of the exciting things that are happening in the exploration side of our portfolio, as I said, building out a really strong portfolio of assets all throughout Brazil.

Wayne will talk about our financial performance. And then myself, Eduardo, and Courtney will talk a little bit about Brazil and what's happening here, a very topical time to be talking about critical minerals. And obviously politics as well. In addition to the speakers, I just want to acknowledge that we have quite a few members of our global leadership team here today. Their names are listed here. You have the opportunity to meet them. They're in the front row. So please, after or during the coffee break, introduce. We've been able to attract some incredible talent to organization, really build out what I see as the future building blocks for our company. And you'll have the opportunity to talk to them in more detail.

So getting going here, I think what makes Ero particularly unique in today's environment, we have a history of unlocking value. If you go back to 2016, I was the first employee at Ero Copper in those days, when it was just a few of us. And we've been able to build out a portfolio of operating mines, development projects, executing on our organic growth strategy.

And we also put in place an action plan to really accelerate the growth of our company. These are conversations that started back in 2020 and 2021 about working with Valet, at that time now Valet-based metals, to start on a combined work on a project we call Furnas. And really, when you look at our performance since 2017 in terms of copper growth, we see a very clear pathway today to grow the company to more than 150,000 tons of copper equivalent production.

And so we're very excited about that. I think today's presentation this week is about showcasing the work that we've done and the work that we are doing to realize that value for our shareholders and for our stakeholders. I think one of the things that's also important to keep in mind, again, one of the things that I'm extremely proud of and that we've worked really hard to do, is throughout the execution of that organic growth strategy, is really protect our share count and the shares outstanding. And what that translated to is obviously a lot of production growth but also revenue growth and resource growth on a relatively stable share count outstanding So we really protected our shareholders and created value while doing that And obviously that reflected in the value that you see in the company today When I think about culture, and this is something that we will talk a lot about, and we talked a little bit about on our Q2 conference call, is the around one arrow.

So aligning standards, processes, people, operating philosophy across all of our sites, all of our offices. And this comes down to behaviors, processes, and capabilities fundamentally driven by a focus on a relentless commitment to safety and a relentless commitment to continuous improvement. I'm going to show a video here that we produced internally back in 2025 when we talked about One Arrow for the first time so that all of you can see the work that went into the transformation that you'll see throughout this week.

A Ero é uma das principais produtoras de cobre e ouro do Brasil. Fazemos parte de um grupo global, com sede no Canadá e com operações no Brasil. Nossas duas operações de cobre incluem Caraíba, localizada no estado da Bahia, e Tucumã, no estado do Pará. Nosso terceiro ativo em operação é a Mina de Ouro de Chavantina, localizada no Mato Grosso. One important part of our growth strategy is to explore our expertise in exploration, and the extension of the life of the mine already existent and the advance of projects in exploration in Brazil, including the project Furnas, in the state of Pará.

At Ero, we are moved by a common commitment that connects and inspires the vision One Ero. It guides us to act with a good respect to individual and collective safety. In all our operations, the mission is clear. Produce the way responsible for the essential minerals for a better future. At Ero, the safety of our work and communities is our biggest priority. For us, production and operational results are satisfying when everyone returns home safely at the end of the day. It's more than a protocol, it's a commitment to life.

We care deeply about the well-being of people and communities because we know that care uns from others is one of our biggest values. Além of care, we value and courage. We have courage to innovate, evolve and face challenges that are coming. We have courage to challenge the status quo, embrace innovation and seek improvement in all areas of our business. In the heart of One Ero is honest and this is a commitment we live every day.

We receive feedbacks oportun, direct and constructive. We are proud of the conversation that puts the company above the individual. We strengthen the confidence and encourage the dialogue open and respectful. At Ero, we have the commitment to share information in a transparent and true way. We also have the collaboration because we know that we are stronger than a team.

The true progress happens when our units work together, integrating forces to transform the way we operate. We are all the best. We are a company that une our operations in Brazil with expertise globally. Together, we are growing stronger every day, building a legacy that brings us daily to our goal of becoming the best business of the country. One company, a vision, a Ero.

And this video of extreme focus on health and safety, Jelson will speak to some of the transformation that happened across our organization the last 18 months, two years, culminating in 2025, one of the lowest LTIFRs that we've had at Aero. More recently, approximately $10 to $15 million in savings in an integrated procurement strategy led by our One Arrow procurement team and philosophy, as well as more than $20 million in savings through renegotiated concentrate contracts all throughout our operations. Again, I think the main theme here being focus on leadership, focus on health and safety, focus on procurement, as well as technology and innovation, and fundamentally underpinned by this culture I spoke to, and you saw the video of One Arrow.

Just to touch briefly on, again, coming back to 2025 in January, I made three commitments to all of you and to all of our stakeholders. That was number one, to achieve commercial production at Tucumán. We did that on July 1st. It was to deleverage our balance sheet, which clearly we have done. And it was to advance the Furnace Copper Gold project as the cornerstone of our future growth strategy, and we've clearly achieved that with the PEA that came out in Q1. So, in addition, we also added some few creative value drivers that have accelerated some of that deleveraging and really resulted in strong financial performance. Obviously, the Gold Concentrate program at Javanchina, a creative way to add value to our business, and that will benefit us not only this year, but also through a good part of next year.

We completed the mine mechanization at Javanchina. And again for those of you that are coming to Javanchina this week you see that in action and the potential that that provides that operation as Jelson will speak to And also the plant de that we achieved at Cariba The last three quarters have been all-time record throughput levels at that operation.

Again, three big value drivers as we think about the future and what our operations are capable of doing. And just to touch on the deleveraging component, something that I'm very proud of, is that 90 cents, roughly 90 cents of every dollar that was available for deleveraging in our company over the last 18 months has gone to deleveraging, really emphasizing the commitment, the performance against that commitment and the focus that we have on positioning the company for future growth. That future growth is coming in the form of a large project. Obviously, we have organic opportunities around our operations, which Jelson and Mike will speak to.

But at Furnas, you know, when I take a big step back and I think about our future, Furnas offers a long-duration mine life, significant production potential, outstanding geologic opportunities in terms of the exploration programs that we have going there. We'll talk about that a little bit as well. And very, very compelling economics. So you're looking here at the sensitivity that was produced in the PA. Obviously, metal prices have improved a lot since then, and it's part of the reason that we're so focused on this project, again, as the cornerstone of our future growth. Our commitment at Furnas goes beyond just the execution of the Ero Copper Corp requirements. Today, September 14th, very proud of our team.

A thousand days of working on site without a single last time injury, and I think that's a milestone worth celebrating. In addition to the fact that in August we completed our 90,000 meters of drilling that was required under the Ero Copper Corp. That happened about two years ahead of schedule, and so congratulations to our team there. We have 11 drill rigs that are operating on site now at Furnas, and those are continuing to test resource extensions, confirm mineralization for future studies, including the pre-feasibility study that we expect to be out in 2027. So what does that mean for Ero? I think fundamentally, as you'll see in this presentation, and as those of you who are joining us on site this week will see, is that we have effectively two main pillars to our value creation strategy that is set on a foundation of deleveraging and de-risking.

So that's coming in two places. Number one, focus on balance sheet deleveraging, which clearly, as I indicated, we've done, and Wayne will speak to that in a little bit more detail here. But to improve our financial strength and flexibility going forward, that's one of the foundational pillars that we have. Also, our continued execution ahead of schedule on Furnas to accelerate that project as much as possible. We're also doing a lot of work on the Ero Copper Corp. We're also doing a lot of work on the Ero Copper Corp. So from near mine opportunities to new regional opportunities in this environment, we've been working quietly for the last several years to put this land package together and do some initial work.

And I think you'll see today why we're excited about the work that we're doing on that side. And finally, for NAS, really creating that bridge to the future state for us with a target FID in 2029.

With that, I'll turn the mic over to Jelson. Thank you very much for being here today. Thank you, Marco, for your introductory remarks. Thank everyone for being here today. I also want to thank our team from Ero, which have been working very hard for us here today. This preparation is fantastic. Thank you very much.

Before I move to the slides, I would like to sort of in the next 25 years, just to explain the common themes that we're going to hear today on this 25 minutes. Number one is safety. Michael mentioned about this, is how we operate.

Also, the technical depth. We know these assets very well and what makes our plans robust. We're also going to be talking about discipline and execution. This is common across all assets and projects. And, of course, we got to talk about people. This is our main asset in the company, the people that actually work for Ero. This is what makes everything possible here. We also got to extend about the application of technology, innovation in our projects and how we are benefiting from this today. And of course, how are we going to make our assets more efficient and how we're doing this as we speak.

Everything on this safety transformation here leads to a very simple point. We want to make our operations safer, and we are doing this as we speak. Our track record, Marco mentioned about 2025, which was our best year so far. Lost time, injury frequency rate, the lowest. We had an uptick in 2026. Also, in the same process, we also have the lowest rate in terms of how the injuries occur. So it actually half of what happened before This is a great thing for us And some of the common themes that we mentioned here is the focus on people the connection with the people on site the entire leadership We got our directors of operations our managers our supervisors and coordinators They are actually in the front line, and this gets the peer-to-peer connection with our operators and makes a big difference in the group.

And also we get the feedback from our operations to us. One of the key areas that we focus in the last 18 months with the support with DSS Plus, and I'll talk about this in a few minutes, is about focus on critical risks. These are the areas that we focus the most because we want to reduce the harm.

Every accident that can cause harm, and that's why we're focusing on the critical areas. We build controls for this. We increase our audits, internal and external. We also increase communication between our teams. If I look on the left side of the presentation here, you're going to see several themes which relates to how we got to one narrow safety management system. And it goes from something simple like 5S housekeeping programs. This is done across the entire organization from mining operation, exploration, and our projects. It's a company-wide. The site is better organized, therefore it's safer and more productive. We've seen before in other places, and Ero is no different. The safer we are, the more productive we are.

We go to projects and aspects like a bright mine is a safe mine. And we started this in the underground mines, and we went through other areas within the surface as well, where we know the difference between having lit mines across the entire set of underground actually improve safety, but also improve productivity. This is all linked together.

On the site, leadership renewal, that is clear accountability. We've got, as I said, the directors, the managers operating and working side by side with our teams on side. That actually makes a difference for us as well. We're sharing best practice, of course, the entire organization. That one arrow that Marco mentioned here, it is just not a title. This has been embedded here, not only safety, but in productivity and procurement and technology, everything.

And I just want to open up a little bit about the DSS program. That we had. We finished this program after 18 months. We brought the company to help us in leadership development. Also processes, governance, and management programs across the entire organization. Also identifying for teams in the ground all the critical risks. So there's a big focus on fatality and serious injury prevention. And then finally, after we trained all the managers and directors on site, we extended that training. We called it train the trainer. So DSS helped us to create the environment such that we continue this process on our own. So the training now is with the supervisors and with the operations, all the operators on site.

This is across the entire organization, and it's been going very well. Michael mentioned about technology, and I want to make a big parenthesis for this.

When we talk about technology in Ero, there's a big focus on people, right? And I'll talk about the three pillars, but big focus on people.

Reduction of exposure, and we'll see some examples on this when I talk about the sites. and give the best information for our teams to take decision on site in the moment. And what it means, I'll give an example related, for instance, to Tukuman with the AI-driven mill, is that all the programs that we put in place in technology, they are very focused. We identify the need with the operations. So the discussions they run from the mind directors to the managers, all the people doing the work, we create the programs, the technology application, and then we have a team under Marcelo, you see in the room, which elaborates the processes, what kind of equipment we're going to use, the timing for the implementation, and what benefits we're going to bring, plus the training, and so forth.

So that is going very well. I'll give an example today. When you visit Caraiba this week, we'll see some of the operations now in drilling area. We actually can do the drilling from the surface. This actually reduced not only the exposure of our operators on site, but also removes the induced error while they're doing their work. Some of these work you see is come on by laser and the full process in there on the screen is going very well. We also have the same process in in southern China. We've got into command something that we started there a few months ago. It's running. It's implementing. I can take my phone and show you guys if you have a time later on where we have a AI basically implemented We implement it with the mill and the crushing circuits, which means that it's not a situation.

It's not about talking about if the equipment has got an issue during the operation, but the entire value chain is linked. So we give information for the operators so they can take a better decision process. So if the system detects that water or a density or even the feed needs to be changed, all of that is done as we progress during the day and the shift, so they can see that and take the appropriate decision that actually is happening right now, and it's making a big difference for our operations as we speak. Digital twin, it's something that we're doing at Tucuman as well, and we look at Furnas in the future. We'll be talking about it.

We want Furnas to start with the right technology from the beginning, not only equipment side, but also how we simulate Furnas on the study phase of the implementation of auto-construction that's going to be used in there. You see, first hand, the blasting in Chavanchina that we're doing this remotely from the surface. It removes people from the line of damage.