Good day, ladies and gentlemen. And welcome to the Taseko Mines Second Quarter 2018 results. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Later we will conduct a question-and-answer sessions and instructions will be given at that time [Operator Instructions]. As a reminder, today’s conference maybe recorded. I’d now like to turn the call over to Mr. Brian Bergot, Investor Relations. Sir, you may begin.

Thank you, Victor. And thank you everyone for joining us today to review Taseko's Second Quarter 2018 Financial Results. My name is Brian Bergot, and I'm the Vice President, Investor Relations for Taseko. Our financial results were issued yesterday after market closed and are available on our Web site at tasekomines.com. Before we begin, I would like to introduce everyone on the call today. We have Russ Hallbauer, President and CEO of Taseko; John McManus, COO of Taseko; and Stuart McDonald, Taseko's Chief Financial Officer. After opening remarks by management, which will review the first quarter business and operational results, we will open the phone lines to analysts and investors for question-and-answer session. As usual before we proceed, I would like to remind our listeners that our comments and answers to your questions may contain forward-looking information. This information, by its nature, is subject risks and uncertainties that may cause the stated outcome to differ materially from the actual outcome. I encourage you to read the cautionary note that accompanies our second quarter results, news release, as well as the risk factors particular to our Company. I will now turn the call over to Russ for his remarks.

Thank you, Brian. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining us today. As I stated in our previous call, our first quarter head grade was low and recoveries pull as a result of oxidation of the copper mineralization as we developed our next pushback in the Granite pit. However, near the end of the first quarter, we began to see increased head grades and recoveries back in the high 80s as we transition through those ore zones. And although the higher grades did not affect first quarter performance, we knew things were improving. This trend is continued in the second quarter with increasing head grades and better recoveries. As I indicated in May, as grade and recoveries improve, we’d be returning to good operating earnings and cash flow and that is exactly what has happened. Copper production rose nearly 50% quarter-over-quarter from the 23 million pounds in Q1 to nearly 34 million pounds this quarter. Earnings from mining operations grew from $14 million to $36 million. So we're back on track with our plan and in fact things are progressing quite well into Q3. In July, we produced just over 15 million pounds of 87% recovery while processing just under 90,000 tons of grades who are concentrated. So I will reiterate what we have previously said that we expect the rest of 2018 to be good from a production position and at U.S. $280 to $3 per pound price of copper, which is generating very good operating earnings and cash flow. Certainly, all the noise around the trade around the trade dispute has affected mining companies exporting to Asia, but we believe that is totally overblown. This copper is effectively trading around a mean copper price of U.S. $3 per pound plus or minus, which continues to give us…

Thanks, Russ and good morning everyone. I can provide some further details from our second quarter financials that we released yesterday. And the improved copper production had significant improvement in our financial results over the previous two quarters as Russ described. And we reported earnings from mine operations before depreciation of $36 million and adjusted EBITDA of $32 million for the quarter. Revenues for the period were $94 million from the sale of 24 million pounds of copper and approximately 300,000 pounds of molybdenum. Our realized copper sales prices were $313 per pound, which was in line with the average LME price for the quarter. Moly prices declined slightly in the quarter to an average of 1,165 per pound and we had some technical issues in the moly plant, which impacted recoveries. As a result, Molly production did not increase in line with the increased copper production and byproduct credits per pounds decreased to $0.12 from $0.23 in the previous quarter. The plant is running well again and moly prices are back up above $12 a pound. So we should see increased byproduct credits, going forward. Site operating costs increased in the second quarter primarily because we capitalized the smaller proportion of waste stripping shipping costs this period, but also because of the increased mining rate. We capitalized $7.7 million of waste stripping which shipping costs in Q2 compared to $14.7 million in the previous quarter. Our total operating cost per pound or C1 increased to $198 per pound that’s 15% lower than the first quarter because of the increased grade and copper production. We also recorded $18 million of depletion and amortization expense in the second quarter compared to $15 million in the first quarter and $12 million a years ago. These increases relate to amortization of capitalized stripping…

Thank you, Stuart. Operator, now open the line to discussion.

[Operator Instructions] And our first question comes from the line of Craig Hutchinson from TD Securities. You may begin.

Question on strip ratios. Can you give us a sense of what we’re going to be looking at for the back half of this year? I mean, you’re down at 1.9 to 1 now, which I think is your reserve strip. Is that something we can model going forward, or do you think it’d be quite variable from next few quarters?

Well, the actual strip ratio, its John here Craig, actual strip ratio stayed steady at about 2.5 but it gets fogged a bit by the amount of material, which goes in and out of the ore stockpile. So in Q2 we had a couple of million tons of ore within the stockpile, where into Q1 and Q4 of 2017, we had ore coming out of the stockpile. So that effectively calculate strips, but the actual amount of rock being moved should be constant.

So 2.5 is what you -- we're guiding for?

Yes, take out that inventory adjustment, it stays about 2.5.

So I guess an update as we should be modeling $5million to $10 million of deferred stripping costs for quarter?

Yes, I think that’s the range, that's a reasonable range Craig.

[Operator Instructions]

Thanks very much folks. So see you next quarter. Thank you operator.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for participating in today's conference. This does conclude the program and you may all disconnect. Everyone, have a great day.