Earnings Labs

Hudbay Minerals Inc. (HBM)

Q4 2016 Earnings Call· Thu, Feb 23, 2017

$22.37

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good morning. My name is Jody and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Copper Mountain Mining Corporation 2016 and Year End Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Rod Shier, Chief Financial Officer of Copper Mountain Mining Corporation, you may begin your conference.

Rod Shier

Analyst · Orest Wowkodaw, Scotia Bank. Your line is open

Thank you, Jody. After opening remarks by management which will review the business and operational results for the fiscal year end 2016, we will open the lines to participants for questions, as noted by Jody. Please note that comments made today that are not of a historical factual nature may contain forward-looking statements. This information, by its nature, is subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause the stated outcome to differ material from actual outcomes. Please refer to the bottom of our latest news release for more information and on Slide 1, if you are following along on the slides. And I will now turn the call over to Jim O’Rourke, our CEO for his remarks. Jim O’Rourke: Thank you, Rod. As Rod mentioned, the slide on Page 1 gives you a pretty good view of what the copper price has been doing in the last year, so I may just refer to that. So good morning, everyone and thank you for joining us. Today as Rod said, we will discuss the 2016 year end results and the operation in the Copper Mountain Mine and our corporate financials. I will briefly summarize the financial results and provide an update on various operational activities, after which Rod will provide financial details for the 2016 fiscal year. 2016 started as a very challenging year for the company, following the perceptive drop in copper price near the end of 2015. Copper price fluctuations in the $2 per pound range during the first 3 months of the quarter have been a challenge. Our team continued to aggressively pursue the cost reduction program initiated at the end of 2015 and achieved strong performance in 2016, with a decreased operating costs, while increasing mill throughput well above the design capacity. These achievements positioned the company…

Rod Shier

Analyst · Orest Wowkodaw, Scotia Bank. Your line is open

Thanks, Jim. As noted on Slide 7 for this year ended December 31, 2016, the company recognized net revenues of $278 million after pricing adjustments and smelter charges based on sales of 82.7 million pounds of copper, 29,900 ounces of gold and 283,900 ounces of silver with an average realized copper price of US$2.19 per pound. This compares to net revenues after pricing adjustments in smelter charges of $242 million based on an average provisional copper price of US$2.49 per pound for the year ended December 31, 2015. While average realized copper prices declined 12% year-over-year, net revenues increased 15% for the 2016 year as compared to the same period last year. This is attributed to the increased pounds of copper being produced and sold during 2015 as compared to the 2015 year. And as noted by Jim, this relates directly to the addition of the secondary crusher and plant optimization efforts by the mine site team. On Slide 8, you can see that cost of sales for the year ended December 31, 2016, were $250 million, which resulted in a gross profit of $27.6 million as compared to the cost of sales of $240 million, which resulted in a gross profit of $2.4 million for the year ended December 31, 2015. This increase in total cost is a result of moving more material than last year and as a result of the unit – and the costs are lower in the 2016 year than the previous year. General and administrative expenses for the year ended December 31, 2016 were $5.6 million compared to $6.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2015. It should be noted that this amount includes an allocation of mine site administration cost as well. Non-cash share-based compensation reflected in an expense of $800,000 for…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from the line of Orest Wowkodaw, Scotia Bank. Your line is open.

Orest Wowkodaw

Analyst · Orest Wowkodaw, Scotia Bank. Your line is open

Hi, good morning. I was just curious what you are anticipating with respect to gold production this year and also in regards to just sustaining capital including capitalized stripping? Jim O’Rourke: Well, with regard to gold production, it should be very similar in the 30,000 ounce range.

Orest Wowkodaw

Analyst · Orest Wowkodaw, Scotia Bank. Your line is open

Okay.

Rod Shier

Analyst · Orest Wowkodaw, Scotia Bank. Your line is open

Sustaining capital. Jim O’Rourke: Sustaining capital. It was pretty modest of $5 million.

Orest Wowkodaw

Analyst · Orest Wowkodaw, Scotia Bank. Your line is open

Sorry, did you say $5 million? Is there a deferred stripping on top of that or would that include that?

Rod Shier

Analyst · Orest Wowkodaw, Scotia Bank. Your line is open

The only deferred stripping that we ever incurred is a function of IFRS unfortunately, because we – any time our strip ratio dips above the LIFO mine average to the one we have to put a little bit on to the balance sheet to normalize that out and you will notice – you will note that in 2016, there was about $2 million that was deferred as a result of that very early in the year. We are not anticipating having to defer under our current plan, but that does get dictated unfortunately, if we dip above that 2:1 strip ratio.

Orest Wowkodaw

Analyst · Orest Wowkodaw, Scotia Bank. Your line is open

Okay, appreciate that.

Rod Shier

Analyst · Orest Wowkodaw, Scotia Bank. Your line is open

As Jim noted our – right now for the next little while we have a short haul and so the guys are really moving a lot of material.

Orest Wowkodaw

Analyst · Orest Wowkodaw, Scotia Bank. Your line is open

Okay.

Jim O'Rourke

Analyst · Orest Wowkodaw, Scotia Bank. Your line is open

Yes. In terms of our mining activity, our mining cost, it’s the same fleet, same number of trucks and everything. So with the same fleet, if we get a short haul, our mining rates go up substantially. And as you can see last year, we were quite a bit over our plan and or our guidance and we are continuing at the higher rate right now.

Orest Wowkodaw

Analyst · Orest Wowkodaw, Scotia Bank. Your line is open

Okay, so that $5 million is a good number to use for ‘17?

Jim O'Rourke

Analyst · Orest Wowkodaw, Scotia Bank. Your line is open

For capital, yes.

Orest Wowkodaw

Analyst · Orest Wowkodaw, Scotia Bank. Your line is open

Yes, for sustaining capital, okay. And then just finally for me, in your disclosure talks about Mitsubishi, I guess funding US$4.8 million debt repayment in February. Can you just explain how the mechanics of this will work and in terms of your relationship now with them? Does this just increase or setup some kind of loan payable to them or can you please walk us through that?

Rod Shier

Analyst · Orest Wowkodaw, Scotia Bank. Your line is open

Yes, sure I can walk you through that. That’s no problem. As you know, Mitsubishi guaranteed the term facility and part of our senior facility, there is a requirement in there to have about 45 days working capital at the mine and if management team and Mitsubishi is part of the team there – management team there is not that 45 days at the mine site. Mitsubishi has contributed the funds to make that term loan payment and you saw that in 2016 and you saw that in February of this year as well. And so what happens to that loan, it then becomes a loan due to Mitsubishi to be paid back down the road.

Orest Wowkodaw

Analyst · Orest Wowkodaw, Scotia Bank. Your line is open

What’s the maturity of that?

Rod Shier

Analyst · Orest Wowkodaw, Scotia Bank. Your line is open

The maturity is the short-term maturity and you will see it under our current liabilities, but it actually is not the intended as long-term they get rolled over every year. And so it gets pushed out, the intent would be that, that gets paid back after the senior credit facility and that’s an unsecured loan. So, it’s really just moving some loan payments a little bit further down the road as the net effect.

Orest Wowkodaw

Analyst · Orest Wowkodaw, Scotia Bank. Your line is open

Okay, thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Marco Rodriguez with Stonegate Capital. Your line is open.

Marco Rodriguez

Analyst · Marco Rodriguez with Stonegate Capital. Your line is open

Good morning. Thank you for taking my questions. Just a couple of real quick ones. First here, just on the electricity deferral aspect, your anticipation for fiscal ‘17 just to utilize the program?

Rod Shier

Analyst · Marco Rodriguez with Stonegate Capital. Your line is open

Hi, Marco. Good to hear from you today. We certainly in our budgeting, we used 222 copper in our budgeting. So at that time, we were planning on deferral, but with – you have seen the increase in copper price to where we are at in the 270ish range now and there would be no deferral. We actually paid back about $300,000 last month, so you start to repay some of that deferred electricity. So based on where copper pricing is today, I would not use any electricity deferral.

Marco Rodriguez

Analyst · Marco Rodriguez with Stonegate Capital. Your line is open

Got it. And I am not sure if I caught this or missed this on the call, but do you have a CapEx spend for fiscal ‘17?

Rod Shier

Analyst · Marco Rodriguez with Stonegate Capital. Your line is open

Yes. Orest was just asking that and it’s about $5 million for sustaining capital is a good number to use.

Marco Rodriguez

Analyst · Marco Rodriguez with Stonegate Capital. Your line is open

Got it. Thanks a lot, guys. Appreciate your time.

Rod Shier

Analyst · Marco Rodriguez with Stonegate Capital. Your line is open

Thanks.

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Stefan Ioannou of Coremark Securities. Your line is open.

Stefan Ioannou

Analyst · Stefan Ioannou of Coremark Securities. Your line is open

Great. Thanks, guys. I was just wondering – I mean, roughly speaking, how much longer do you expect to benefit from what you would consider a short haul at the mine? Jim O’Rourke: Well, we will throughout this year and – but we are continuing evaluating options and looking at how we are going to do that, maintain that, but definitely through this year.

Stefan Ioannou

Analyst · Stefan Ioannou of Coremark Securities. Your line is open

Okay, okay. And then you mentioned some of the exploration you did in and around the pit last year, it’s going to result at an updated resource and increased grades. Did you have any idea of how soon we may see the impact of higher grades in the mine planning? And is it going to be something we might see in 2018, 2019 or how will that sort of fit into the overall mine plan? Jim O’Rourke: Well, I think that our existing mine plan does show that this year is a lower year for us. But with regard to the drilling, that west end of Pit #2 is developing quite nicely and we do want to get some more drilling out that way, because as you are aware, every ton we convert from waste ore is advantageous.

Stefan Ioannou

Analyst · Stefan Ioannou of Coremark Securities. Your line is open

Sure, okay, And then maybe just one last question just on the debt itself, I know going into late last year there was some thoughts of talking to Mitsubishi about sort of just realigning some of the debt repayments. And I guess that never sort of really came to full fruition with copper being at $75 a pound now, is that sort of still on hold or do you think there maybe some discussions with Mitsubishi at some point this year to sort of talk about debt repayments in later this year end and thereafter? Jim O’Rourke: Yes, any rescheduling would have just been with the senior lenders and that was a discussion last year, when the price was down in the $2, $2.10 range. And now with the prices where they are now, I don’t think there is much appetite for that either from us or from them. So I don’t think that’s necessary.

Stefan Ioannou

Analyst · Stefan Ioannou of Coremark Securities. Your line is open

Okay, so we shouldn’t expect any of that. Okay, great. Thanks very much guys.

Operator

Operator

There are no further questions at this time.

Rod Shier

Analyst · Orest Wowkodaw, Scotia Bank. Your line is open

Okay. I would like to thank everybody for dialing in to our 2016 conference call. And as usual, if you have any other questions, feel free to call Jim or myself directly. Thank you very much. Goodbye. Jim O’Rourke: Thank you.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today’s conference call. You may now disconnect.