Earnings call transcript: Ero Copper Q3 2025 misses forecasts, market reacts

Ero Copper Corp reported its third-quarter earnings, revealing a significant miss on both earnings per share (EPS) and revenue forecasts. The company reported an EPS of $0.27, falling short of the $0.42 forecast, and actual revenue of $177.1 million, missing the expected $226.77 million. Following the announcement, Ero Copper's stock saw a decline of 4.22% in premarket trading, reflecting investor disappointment with the results.

Key Takeaways

• Ero Copper's Q3 EPS was $0.27, missing the forecast by 35.71%.
• Revenue came in at $177.1 million, below the $226.77 million forecast.
• The stock dropped 4.22% in premarket trading following the earnings announcement.
• The company highlighted operational improvements and future growth potential.

Company Performance

Ero Copper's overall performance in the third quarter of 2025 showed operational improvements despite financial setbacks. The company achieved a revenue increase of $14 million compared to the previous quarter. Operationally, Ero Copper reported record production levels in October and significant improvements in its copper and gold operations, which could support future growth.

Financial Highlights

• Revenue: $177.1 million, up from $163.1 million in Q2
• Earnings per share: $0.27, down from $0.42 forecast
• Adjusted EBITDA: $77.1 million
• Liquidity: $111 million, including $66.3 million in cash
• Net Debt Leverage Ratio: Decreased to 1.9x from 2.1x in Q2

Earnings vs. Forecast

Ero Copper's third-quarter results fell short of expectations, with a 35.71% negative surprise in EPS and a 21.9% shortfall in revenue. This performance contrasts with previous quarters where the company met or exceeded forecasts, highlighting a significant deviation this quarter.

Market Reaction

The market responded negatively to Ero Copper's earnings miss, with the stock declining by 4.22% in premarket trading. The stock's performance is now closer to its 52-week low of $9.30, although it remains above this threshold. The broader market and sector trends will likely influence future stock movements.

Outlook & Guidance

Looking ahead, Ero Copper anticipates a strong fourth quarter, expecting it to be the most productive of the year. The company is targeting the low end of its annual production guidance and plans to continue deleveraging its balance sheet. Long-term projections remain positive, with significant growth expected in 2026.

Executive Commentary

CEO Marko DeFilippo emphasized the company's focus on operational stability and growth, stating, "We set out this year to turn around and stabilize our operations." He highlighted the ongoing improvements in production rates and throughput levels as key drivers for future success.

Risks and Challenges

• Potential fluctuations in copper and gold prices could impact revenue.
• Foreign exchange volatility, despite hedging strategies, poses a risk.
• Operational costs, particularly in gold production, must be managed effectively.
• The company's ability to meet future production targets remains critical.
• Global economic conditions and supply chain disruptions could affect performance.

Q&A

During the earnings call, analysts inquired about the company's gold concentrate sales and the impact of the Royal Gold stream. Executives also addressed improvements in Tucumã's filtration capacity and potential cost reductions at Xavantina, indicating ongoing efforts to enhance efficiency and profitability.

Full transcript - Ero Copper Corp (ERO) Q3 2025:

Operator: Thank you for standing by. This is the conference operator. Welcome to the Ero Copper Third Quarter 2025 Operating and Financial Results Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode, and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. Should you need assistance during the conference call, you may signal an operator by pressing star then zero. I would now like to turn the conference over to Farouk Ahmed, VP Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Farouk Ahmed, VP Investor Relations, Ero Copper: Thank you, Operator. Good morning and welcome to Ero Copper's Third Quarter Earnings Call. Our operating and financial results were released yesterday afternoon and are available on our website, along with our financial statements and MD&A for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2025. A corresponding earnings presentation can be downloaded directly from the webcast and is also available in the presentation section of our website. Joining me on the call today are Makko DeFilippo, President and Chief Executive Officer; Wayne Drier, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; Gelson Batista, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer; and Courtney Lynn, Executive Vice President, External Affairs and Strategy. Before we begin, I'd like to remind everyone that today's discussion will include forward-looking statements, which involve risks and uncertainties that may cause actual results to differ materially.

For a detailed discussion of these risks and their potential impact on our business, please refer to our most recent annual information form, available on our website as well as on SEDAR and EDGAR. Unless otherwise noted, all figures discussed today are in U.S. dollars. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Marko DeFilippo.

Marko DeFilippo, President and Chief Executive Officer, Ero Copper: Thank you, Farouk, and thank you all for taking the time to join us this morning. Speaking for everyone on this side of today's conference call, it is an exciting time over here at Ero. During our last quarterly update and in conversations with many stakeholders since then, we have been speaking to the fundamental transformation that has been underway at Ero this year. This work has continued to drive sequential improvements in quarterly performance and unlock new value drivers across our portfolio. These efforts are clearly evident in our Q3 results and in our Jab and Chino release yesterday. I will speak to both on today's call while ensuring we have sufficient time for questions. Yesterday, before market open, we announced the results of a dedicated behind-the-scenes effort we initiated late last year to create value from within our portfolio, specifically at the Jab and Chino operations.

This work entailed sampling, metallurgical testing, characterization, and commercialization of stockpiled gold concentrates that had been produced in small but high-grade quantities since processing operations began over a decade ago. These efforts have culminated in the announcement of a maiden-inferred resource of 24,000 tons, grading approximately 37 grams per ton, containing 29,000 ounces of gold. The estimate was based on detailed sampling of approximately 20% of the concentrate stockpile volume. Late last month, just shy of one year since we laid out the initial work plan for this initiative with our teams, we commenced shipping gold concentrate, resulting in our first invoice this week, which Wayne will speak to in more detail. Looking ahead, we expect to sell between 10,000 and 15,000 tons of concentrate during Q4 2025 at an operating cost of approximately $300-$500 per ounce of gold.

At approximately 90%-95% payability after deductions and treatment charges, this means, in practical terms, that we expect to significantly accelerate the deleveraging of our business, one of our core objectives for 2025. Sampling campaigns are ongoing to better quantify the remaining gold concentrate in stockpile. We expect to sell the full volume over the next 12-18 months, resulting in what we expect to be a significant boost to gold sales and financial performance. Before I jump back into the quarter itself, I'll just address what is likely the first question many of you have: How did October go, and how does that compare to underlying operational guidance ranges?

While one month doesn't make a quarter and we have a considerable amount of daylight between now and December 31, I am pleased to report that every single operation in our portfolio achieved not just 2025 calendar year monthly records for productivity and production, but they achieved all-time historic monthly records in October, beating some set many years ago. Starting at Caraíba, we built on the momentum of a solid Q3. During the month of October, achieved all-time record mine tonnages from each of the Pilar, Vermelho, and Surubim mines. New high watermarks across all of our mines at Caraíba supported all-time record monthly mill throughput of just over 400,000 tons, implying an annualized run rate well beyond our installed capacity. We achieved this result on the back of a successful debottlenecking exercise that was initiated early this year and completed during the third quarter at effectively zero cost.

Q4 at Caraíba is off to a good start with over 3,500 tons of copper produced in October, on par with our best month so far this year. At Tucumã, sequential improvement in throughput volumes and grades, following another sequential quarter of nearly 20% growth in copper production, drove a new monthly record in October of approximately 3,300 tons of copper produced. Last but not least, at Xavantina, we produced just shy of 7,000 ounces of gold in October, excluding any benefits from our new concentrate sales operation. This is a particularly noteworthy result when you consider that our average quarterly production during the first half of the year was also 7,000 ounces. This result reflects the considerable effort we have put into successfully mechanizing Xavantina to make it safe and more productive. I'm very proud of what Rodrigo Fidelis and his team.

The whole broader team at Caraíba and Xavantina have been doing to achieve these results. More broadly speaking, we have spent a lot of time this year changing the way we do things, challenging the status quo, incentivizing improvement and optimization across our organization, and focusing on health and safety in order to drive productivity and operational excellence. The build we saw from a challenging first half of the year across the group, the green shoots in July and August, momentum from August into September, and breaking all-time records in September and October has been energizing, and we expect many more production records to be broken over the coming months and years.

I am deeply proud of the work we are doing to achieve these results, proud of our global leadership team for their commitment, and thankful to our operational leadership for achieving these results while consistently improving our consolidated safety performance. That was a long detour to our third quarter results, but hopefully that clears up the question queue. Getting back to the quarter itself, Q3 was another record for Ero on consolidated copper production due to increased contributions from Tucumã, up nearly 20% for the second consecutive quarter. As we look to Q4, and as evidenced by my commentary on October, we continue to build on our strengths here and are expecting Q4 to be the strongest production quarter of the year across all three of our operations.

At Caraíba, plant throughput levels reached a quarterly volume record supported by sequentially higher mining rates across all three mines in the complex, momentum we have carried so far into Q4. Grade declined as expected in the quarter as we switched our center of mass to the upper levels of the Pilar mine and received more ore from the Surubim pit, a strategy shift that was discussed at length last quarter. We expect to continue to benefit from higher throughput levels going forward, the result of a multi-quarter debottlenecking effort in order to drive higher copper production. We expect strong production in Q4 to allow us to achieve the low end of our annual production guidance, and we expect cash costs to decline from Q3 levels during Q4, supporting our full year C1 cash costs in the lower half of our range.

At Tucumã, production in the third quarter increased 19%. Driven by the continued ramp-up of throughput at the mill, up approximately 37% quarter on quarter, partially offset by lower planned grades. As we look to Q4, we expect continued progress in increasing throughput levels along with higher grades in the mine to drive the strongest production of the year. We're off to a good start in October and expect strong production in Q4 to allow us to achieve the low end of our annual production guidance. We have adjusted our full year C1 cash cost guidance at Tucumã to reflect higher-than-expected maintenance and freight costs incurred during Q3, which will be partially offset by the expected improvements in underlying costs in Q4.

At Xavantina, production increased by approximately 17% quarter on quarter as the mine began to benefit from our investments in mechanization during the first half of the year. We mined over 50,000 tons of ore in Q3, a level we have not achieved since 2022. Looking ahead into Q4, as I touched on in my October commentary, we expect higher mine tonnage, higher tons processed, and higher-grade stopes to significantly drive higher gold production in Q4, which will allow us to achieve the lower end of gold production guidance and meet full-year cost guidance ranges at Xavantina. At Furnas, a central part of our growth strategy, physical work streams on-site progressed well through the end of October. We have now completed approximately 50,000 meters of drilling, completing the drilling obligations set out in the agreement for both the phase one and phase two programs.

The phase one program, completed early this year, was drilled in support of an updated mineral resource estimate and preliminary economic analysis. Technical work streams to support the preliminary economic analysis remain ongoing, and we are on track to complete this study during the first half of next year. The drilling completed under phase two of the agreement will be used in time to support the development of a pre-feasibility study. We currently do not anticipate slowing the drill program at Furnas based on the success of these programs and early insights into potential project economics. We set out this year to turn around and stabilize our operations, achieve commercial production at Tucumã, deliver our balance sheet, aggressively advance long-term growth initiatives at Furnas, and in due course initiate returns to shareholders.

Transformative work is non-linear, but seeing the momentum we have carried and the results flow through to an incredible September and October makes me confident we are on the right path. Every area of our business is doing its part to achieve these goals and create additional value for all of our stakeholders out of what we believe is a truly remarkable asset portfolio. I am thankful as ever for the continued support and belief in our vision for Ero. To ensure we have sufficient time for Q&A, I will leave it there and pass the call to Wayne, who will provide more detail on our financial results. Thank you, Makko.

Our third quarter financial results reflected a 24% increase in copper concentrate sales at Tucumã, which, together with stronger copper and gold prices during the period, drove revenue to $177 million, or $14 million higher when compared to the second quarter. At the same time, operating costs increased due to expected lower mine and process grades at Caraíba and a change in the accounting treatment at Tucumã following the declaration of commercial production on July 1, 2025. As a reminder, ramp-up costs are no longer capitalized, and depletion, depreciation, and amortization began to be recognized at the operation. As a result, adjusted EBITDA totaled $77.1 million in the third quarter, and adjusted net income attributable to owners of the company was $27.9 million, or $0.27 per share.

Our liquidity position at quarter end stood at $111 million, including $66.3 million in cash and cash equivalents and $45 million of undrawn availability under our revolving credit facility. We continued to deleverage our balance sheet, paying down $9 million on our copper prepayment facility during the quarter. Combined with higher 12-month trailing EBITDA, this resulted in further improvement in our net debt leverage ratio, which decreased to 1.9 times at the end of Q3, from 2.1 times in Q2 and 2.5 times at the end of 2022. With performance expected to be strongest across all three of our operations in the fourth quarter and additional cash flow from Xavantina's gold concentrate sales, we expect to materially accelerate deleveraging in the coming months.

Since the beginning of Q4, we've already shipped 3,000 tons of gold concentrate at an invoiced value of approximately $10 million, providing early momentum toward that goal. As for our foreign exchange hedge program, our total notional position at quarter end was $290 million, consisting of zero-cost collars with a weighted average floor and ceiling of 5.59 and 6.59 Brazilian real per dollar, respectively. These extend through December 2026. The real trended stronger and below our collar range during the quarter, resulting in a realized gain of $2 million on these hedges. I'll now pass the call back to Makko for some closing remarks. Thank you, Wayne. Before we move into the Q&A session, I want to take a moment here to reiterate our commitment to delivering on our strategy at Ero, the one that we set out in January of this year.

Thank you for your continued support in our company. Look forward to speaking with you in the new year. With that, I'll now turn the call back to the operator to open the line for questions. We will now begin the question and answer session. To join the question queue, you may press star then one on your telephone keypad. You will hear a tone acknowledging your request. If you're using a speakerphone, please pick up your handset before pressing any keys. To withdraw your question, please press star then two. The first question comes from Fahad Tariq with Jefferies. Please go ahead. Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. On Xavantina, on the gold concentrate, maybe it's too early to tell, but how should we be thinking about the remaining 80% that has not been sampled yet?

Is the assumption, would it be a fair assumption to assume that the concentrates are homogenous and that it could be maybe close to 144,000 ounces of contained gold? Yeah. Thank you for the question. I think everyone on this call is capable of dividing the 29,000 ounces by 0.2. We're very excited about the opportunity and what it means for our company, but I think it's too early to say exactly what that remaining volume will be. We fundamentally just need to do the work. As we outlined in our prepared remarks and in the news release yesterday, we do expect to sell the full volume over the next 12-18 months, which should be a very significant boost to our financial performance. In terms of outlining specific densities and grades for the volumes that have yet to be sampled, very difficult to do. Okay.

Maybe just switching gears to Brazil costs in general. One of your mining peers, but more on the gold side, has talked about significant labor contractor inflation. Yeah, labor and contractor inflation in Brazil specifically. Just curious if you've seen anything that's been popping up on that. Yeah. Also, great question. Let's take a step back and look over the last eight years because I think context is important. What we saw from effectively 2017 until last year is that the rate of inflation in Brazil was outpaced by the depreciation of the currency. I don't know what commentary or what company that came from, but it's fair to say that in U.S. dollar terms, inflation is still running high in Brazil. We do see that in our labor agreements. We see that in our contractor pricing.

Over the last two years, we have not benefited as much from a depreciating BRL as we did in prior years, right, from 2017 to 2022. As Wayne outlined, one of our strategies to help mitigate that is to put in costless collars on the foreign exchange, which we have put in place for a portion of our spend next year with a floor that is higher than this year, or at a weaker level than this year to help offset some of the inflation that we are seeing. Again, I think whenever we talk about inflation cost in Brazil, it is important to overlay what is happening in the currency and our efforts to help mitigate that. We have a number of initiatives that we spoke to in the past that we call our full potential exercise.

It's a combined effort from operations and procurement to continually seek, as our business has grown over the past two years with integrating Tucumã and now the mechanization of Xavantina, to enter into longer-dated contracts across the group. We have seen cost reductions on a, I don't want to say at a significant level, but at least enough to offset the inflation that we're seeing in our business. We are going to continue that work. Again, it's fundamental to the long-term protection of our operating margins, and we are going to continue that work in the future. Great. Thank you. The next question comes from Guilherme Rosito with Bank of America. Please go ahead. Hey, hello, guys. Thank you for taking my question. My first one is on the value creation strategy in Xavantina. I just want to understand regarding the timing.

Why have you guys announced it now and not before? Just given when you look at the cash OpEx of these concentrates. They look super accretive even under lower gold prices. Of course, it is even more now that prices are close to $4,000. Maybe just if you could expand on why doing it now and not before, if it was a matter of time of having the capability to take a look at that. Also, if you guys see potential for doing that into your other operations, especially Caraíba, which has been running for some time and maybe has something seen in terms of concentrate stockpile or maybe the waste on the dams. Finally, on Tucumã, there's just a quick question. How are you guys seeing the operating rates throughout 2026 between quarters? When are you expecting out to reach nameplate capacity? Thank you.

Perfect. Thank you. We'll go through those one by one. Thank you very much. The value creation opportunity at Javan China, it's worth stressing. This is not an initiative that began in earnest when gold price hit $4,000 an ounce. This is something that we've known about for a few years. I was involved in my prior role in an engineering exercise to recover value from this material. We did quite a bit of engineering work a few years ago, and we had mixed results during that time. As you'll probably appreciate, we were fairly busy over the last few years building Tucumã, and this sat on the back burner. With the change in leadership that we had this year, both on-site and throughout our technical group, there were a few key initiatives that we outlined in late last year that were chased down in earnest.

This was one of those initiatives. Again, the work that, to unlock the value, was not simply a matter of selling concentrate. It involved a significant effort in sampling, material characterization, metallurgical testing, and a big effort from our commercial team to arrive at the point that we did just a few weeks ago. I would say that, as a value creation initiative, it looked great when we started this, and gold price was at $3,000 an ounce. It looks obviously fantastic at $4,000 an ounce, but the run-up in gold price was circumstantial with respect to the timing. As I said, we started this in earnest late last year. Hopefully that answers your first question. With respect to other opportunities across our portfolio in terms of creating value, I would say we have a number of opportunities in terms of creating value from our operations.

We're looking at a few things, one of which I'll talk about in a minute, which is at Tucumã. At Caraíba, look, we need to do the work. It's hard for me to say what other opportunities we have there. We need to do the work to determine if there's residual value at that operation. Obviously, we've spent the first half of this year focused on health and safety, operational excellence, detailed planning, health and safety across all of our assets. Some of the value initiatives that we're working on, we're pretty excited about, include some activities at Caraíba. Too early to say if that will be something similar. I don't expect the same level of opportunity, but for sure, we're chasing a few other high-value opportunities across the group. Tucumã, 2026. The last question that you asked there.

Look, we are seeing a continued ramp-up in our production rates and throughput levels at Tucumã. We're really encouraged by the progress coming out of September and October. We have a lot more work to do, as I outlined, until December 31 at midnight. It's fair to say that. The improvements that we've been able to make since January, February, March to now are significant. We see those improvements as reaching terminal velocity on throughput volume because of our filtration system. We are looking right now at adding additional filtration capacity to help alleviate that bottleneck or at least take the step up in the rate of improvement. That work is happening right now. I wouldn't expect there to be a.

Reaching design capacity until the second half of next year at this stage, but we'll talk about that more in January when we come out with our guide for the year. We are working on a lot of initiatives. In fact, last week, we had a mobile filter press arrive on-site, and so we're pretty excited about getting that operating to help us break through some of those last challenges. I guess it's important to note we're not talking about large-dollar investments. Number one. Number two, I think the silver lining here is that when you look across the rest of the asset, our crushing circuit, our grinding circuit, our flotation circuit is performing exceptionally well. And so with Gelson here and the whole team, we're looking well beyond the 4 million tons a year and how we can maximize the installed asset that we have.

As part of a debottleneck exercise. That is an important factor when you think about the longer-term production profile at Tucumã coming off later in the mine life. If we can increase throughput levels with a relatively modest investment, that will obviously go a long way to stabilizing production volumes over the long term. Stay tuned. More information on that to come. Hopefully, that answers your question on Tucumã. Yes, it does. Thank you, Marko. Thanks, everyone. Bye. The next question comes from Emerson Viera with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead. Hello, everyone. Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity. I have two sets of questions. The first one on the gold concentrate sales. Can you guys please share with us what is the expected timeline to sample the remaining 80% of the total stockpile volume, please?

The second one on the gold side, I just want to understand if this concentrate sales is also subject to the stream conditions that the company has with Royal Gold. By that, I mean, should we assume that 25% of those 24,000 ounces shall be delivered at 40% of spot prices? Moving on to Tucumã, can you guys share with us what has been done and what are the next steps on the ongoing improvement of the tailings filtration circuit? Also, following on Tucumã, looking at the guidance and taking recoveries and grades from 3 kilos as a reference, the company's throughput, I mean, Tucumã's throughput, actually, should almost double in the 4 kilos so you can reach the 30,000-tons guidance. I understand that grades should improve and throughput has been ramping up through the quarter.

Can you share with us what was the throughput figure for September, maybe, or any latest update on throughput figures, please? That's it. Thank you. One second. I'm just writing down your last question so I get them all. I think we're, yeah, thanks for the question, Emerson. Starting to go through here, first question. Gold concentrate sales, what's the timing on the remaining volumes on sampling? Look, the practical reality here is that we did a large amount of work on the volume that was available to be sampled. We need to sell that volume before we continue sampling. That's obviously what we're doing, as Wayne alluded to. Our objective is to do that as fast as possible. The reality is that we have a planned resource and reserve schedule.

We believe at this point that our sales of concentrate volumes will supersede the rate of our resource update timing. What that means from a practical perspective is that we will provide clarity on a quarterly basis in arrears for the concentrate volumes that we have sold next year. We will talk about that more next year in our guidance with respect to giving some more directional levels on the quarterly cadence of concentrate sales. As Wayne said, and I mentioned, the first sale occurred this week. We would like to get a few more weeks and months of sales here going before we talk about the cadence for next year. Stay tuned on that side. As I said, the practical reality is that we are going to ship and sell as much as, and as quickly as we can, and do that safely.

That means that we'll be providing updates quarterly in arrears as we go forward. Again, provide some additional forward-looking information in our guidance for next year in January. The second question, are concentrate sales subject to the stream? Yes, they are. That's a pretty conventional term across all streaming agreements, so nothing unusual there. The stream gold from concentrate sales or the gold from concentrate sales will be subject to the streaming agreement. We have a great relationship with Royal Gold. They've been an incredible partner for the growth and vision of Xavantina over the years, all the way from their first investment. We're really pleased that these deliveries will help to accelerate the effectively paydown to the stage three, which is an effective 6% stream tail.

If you want more information on that, you can look at the streaming agreements that we have filed on SEDAR. Effectively, it will help accelerate to the next phase, which is a step down from the 25% gold deliveries. Tucumã, filtration capacity, what is planned, what has been done, what is ongoing, and throughput level clarity. As I mentioned early on, we do see this continued rate of improvement. It is slowing down. As I said, reaching terminal velocity on the rate of change. That is just a function of requiring—it looks like we will require some additional filtration capacity. As I mentioned, a few months ago, we mobilized a mobile filter press on-site. That is being ramped up and operating now, which should help relieve a little bit of additional capacity.

Gelson and the team are doing additional engineering work and looking at alternative sources for incremental tailings capacity to help break through that rate of change and get throughput volumes up. As you mentioned, we're still looking ahead on the back of a solid October. As I mentioned, we see that grades and recoveries are performing well. We expect that to continue into Q4. Helping us to achieve the low end of our guidance range at 30,000 tons of copper for the year. On the throughput level itself, as I said, we are seeing continued improvements. We saw improvement in September, October. We expect to have a good month in November and December as well. I think on the last conference call, I mentioned sort of exit velocity around 80% of our design throughput. We might undershoot that by a little bit, but we've been able to.

Continue to have high-grade feed from the mine that'll help support production levels in Q4. Gelson, I don't know if there's anything you want to add on the specific work streams for the filtration capacity. Thanks, Makko. Thanks for the question as well. I mean, you've mentioned before about sequential improvement in Tucumã. I think this is the progress for the entire year. There are various things on debottlenecking. We engage experts. They've been helping us for some time now. Also, optimization in the plant. It varies, mostly on the filtration plant, but small things on mill as well and the grinding system and also the thickener. This is ongoing, and we'll see the results in 2026. All right. Thank you for the answer, guys. Have a good one. The next question comes from Craig Hutchison with TD Cowen. Please go ahead. Hi, guys.

Thanks for taking my question. Just on Xavantina, it sounds like it's been a good start to Q4. Can you give us some guidelines in terms of what the mining rates are, maybe on a quarterly basis? As you kind of move into next year, what is your capability now that you have the mechanized equipment? Maybe just a sort of follow-up question. What should we think about in terms of the grades as we kind of move into next year, given the updated reserves you guys have, which I think is just under 7 grams at the time? Thanks. Yeah. Thank you, Craig. When it comes to Xavantina, there are a few things to note there. Maybe step back just a minute before we talk about specific rates.

One of our objectives for the strategy at Xavantina this year, obviously, unlock value from gold concentrate sales. Check that mark, check that off the list. The second was to really extend the known limits of mineralization in the mine. I think that was reflected really well in our resource update, specifically with the very significant increase in measured indicated resources and inferred resources. Our target was to uncover 1 million ounces. That was our objective. When you look at what we put out yesterday, I think it is fair to say that we achieved that objective of 1 million ounces. Some of the last holes in the underground mine, we were looking at a recent intercept this morning that came out a few weeks ago, 15 meters at 11-12 grams per ton.

We're seeing a significant increase in the potential for Javan China, and that makes us very excited. Again, coming back to the strategy for the year, mechanize the mine, make it safer, extend the known limits of mineralization. Obviously, over the next few years, we've started this work now. We need to do additional infill drilling to confirm those resources, which are not yet mineral reserves. We've been really happy with the effort on mechanization and what that means for Javan China. We talked a little bit about mining rates in Q3. Obviously, you can see that. From an ore process perspective, big increase, right? Going up to 50,000 tons mined and processed during Q3. That implies a rate just over 15,000 tons. We've been able to at least match that in October, much higher grades.

Just a function of where we are on the ore body. Coming in at about 17 grams per ton in October. So very high grade. When we think about the variability and that deposit still exists, mechanization has allowed us to increase the mining rates substantially and do it at a lower cost, while making it more productive and safer at the same time. Okay. 17 grams per ton in October. Wow. Okay. I mean, obviously, probably not sustainable at those grades, but next year, I guess, we will look for updates with respect to those grades as well. All right. Thanks, guys. Yeah. Yeah. Look, Craig, I mean, I think if you go back in history and you look at what we are able to do, again, we do get volatility month-on-month that tends to smooth out over a quarterly basis.

We're still expecting high grades in Q4, just in particular as a result of the excellent performance in October. Some of the areas that we have available to mine, again, we're doing it at a lower cost today. We're doing it safer. I'm incredibly proud of the team at Xavantina for what they've been able to do this year. Great. Thanks, guys. The next question comes from Anita Soni with CIBC World Markets. Please go ahead. Hi. Thanks for taking my questions. Just a couple of follow-ups to Craig's questions on Xavantina. In terms of the, I guess I was just looking for a split in the new reserve estimate. How much of it is sublevel stoping and how much of it is your typical room and pillar as a percentage? Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. There's very little remaining room and pillar mining.

It's going to be immaterial in the context of our total reserves. We're 100% focused on sublevel stoping. There's a little bit of residual room and pillar, but the overall majority is going to be sublevel stoping. Okay. So then when we look at the cutoff, I guess in the cutoff analysis on resources, which is generally a little less conservative than what you would have on reserves, I think you used a consolidated mining and processing number of $107 U.S. Is that a—I mean, what should we be thinking about in terms of mining costs and processing? I mean, processing costs, I guess, will be the same. But the mining costs, what kind of savings would we get versus the mining costs that you're delivering right now? Yeah. Thanks. Good question. We looked at this in detail. I'd say that we're early days on mechanization.

We are coming back to the original plan was to complete the mechanization of the mine by June of next year. It was such a resounding success. We accelerated that timeline. Our last jackleg mining crew left site in September, and so we're 100% mechanized. I think to give a specific cost reduction number is probably a bit immature, given that we're still optimizing. What we've seen so far, again, I wouldn't peg this for the long term, but something in the order of 30-35% reduction in mining costs is what we've seen so far in terms of BRL per ton. Obviously, it's going to impact by FX and a few other variables there, but so far about a 30% reduction in mining unit cost. Okay. Can you just tell me what the processing costs are right now?

I don't have that right in front of me. We can certainly follow up on the call, yeah, after the call. Thank you. Sure. Okay. And then just one last question. A bit on the Matina vein, as I look at how the resource went to reserve. It's more than the 23% dilution that I think you guys were using in the estimate. Can someone provide some color on what happened with that specific vein? I think the other vein, the San Antonio vein, looks kind of in line with the 23% dilution that you were talking about. But this one went from 11 grams per ton in resources down to 6.65. So that's kind of close to half or 40% down. Is there anything in particular there that I should be thinking about? Yeah. Obviously, the 23% is average across.

I think when you get to specifics—and we can address this offline too—I think it's probably a better form. When you look at the planned stopes that we have with sublevel stoping, they're obviously larger than room and pillar. That tends to increase planned dilution when you look at any kind of variability in ore body in terms of its orientation, dip, any contours. You tend to pull in more planned dilution when you're using larger stopes. Again, that 23% is the average across the ore body. We can talk more specifically about the Matina vein and some of the impacts there in the update offline. Hopefully, that gives you kind of a rough sense of what we're looking at. Yeah. And then just a last question.

Are you going to file a 43-101 on this one, or did you do it already? I'm sorry. I'm on the road right now. Yeah. No worries. No, we will within 45 days of when the news release went out yesterday. So expect that before year-end. Okay. Thank you. That's it for my questions. The next question comes from Rose Ross with Clarkson Security. Please go ahead. Good afternoon, guys. Thank you for taking my question. Congrats also on the record production. I wanted to ask about the costs this quarter. And maybe some commentary if there are any cost pressures in the business right now. On Caraíba, it appears to be an 8% increase in mining costs and a 28% increase in processing costs. While at Xavantina, there seems to be a jump in sustaining CapEx.

Is there a trend of increasing costs or any color to add to that increase? No, none other than what we outlined in the call. Obviously, we did increase production volumes a lot at Caraíba, which had an impact too. If you normalize that for volume, I think you see that it is pretty comparable quarter on quarter. Obviously, we had a higher grade in Q2. Q3 was a bump-up. We expect that to come down in Q4, as I outlined on the call at Caraíba. Javan China, I think there are some timing differences there on sustaining capital. I would not read too much into that in terms of increasing cost. I think I commented on one of the earlier questions about inflation in Brazil. That is a reality of all operations. I think not just in Brazil, but globally, quite frankly.

We're working hard to make sure that we offset those inflationary pressures with hedges on the BRL so that we can protect our operating margins going into next year. Okay. Great. Second and final question also. It appears that the company is in a phase now where everything is sort of centered on getting to come out at the nameplate capacity. But after sort of achieving that later next year, how would you describe the vision of the company and sort of the next phase of the company? I expect that the Furnas growth leg is a bit further into the future. How would you describe sort of that next phase for Ero? No, that's exactly right. I mean, I know we don't get asked about it a lot anymore.

When you look across our portfolio, we still have a number of value-generative projects that are ongoing or in process. Gelson and I were on site at Caraíba over the weekend, reviewing the progress on our shaft project to access a higher-grade zone in the Pilar mine, which we think will transform the productivity and obviously margins for that asset when that comes online in 2027. That is a big investment that we have committed to. We have been working on that over a number of years. The shaft right now is about 870 meters below surface, and right now, it takes about five minutes to get down to that level in the cage compared to almost an hour driving down the ramp. That will make a very significant improvement in our company later on in 2027. That part of the portfolio is obviously a big value creation exercise.

Incredibly proud of what we have been able to do there, not just in terms of unlocking value from gold concentrates, but also the mechanization of the mine. If you look at the planning and effort and execution of those investments and that project, it has been a big success this year. Again, very proud of the work that we are doing there. We do see, with keeping that million-ounce target in mind, we see opportunities there to eventually increase production. Obviously, that needs additional studies. There is ventilation, there is drilling, there is development involved in that, and some infrastructure. We are working on studies to help support that for the future. Clearly, with a million-ounce potential and growing, again, I mentioned some of those deeper drill holes and the very strong mineralization we continue to see in San Antonio, we for sure see opportunity to expand that operation.

That's something that we'll be working on for the next year. You hit it on the head for an honest. Looks like a very compelling opportunity. Obviously, we're working hard right now on the preliminary economic analysis and the drilling, which again remains on track for the first half of next year. If I take a big step back, I've had the distinct privilege of being the first employee of Ero at Ero Copper nine years ago and to watch what's happened this year. To see our teams firing on all cylinders here at the end of Q3 and early into Q4. It's been an incredible year of transformation and pretty exciting to see the results that we've been able to produce. As I said, nothing's a guarantee or a layup for sure. We have a lot of daylight between now and December 31.

When I look at beyond December 31 in this year, I'm incredibly excited about the legwork that we've done and where we're heading. All right. That's great. Thank you. Once again, if you have a question, please press star, then one. Since there are no more questions, this concludes the question and answer session. I would like to turn the conference back over to Marko DeFilippo for any closing remarks. Please go ahead. Yeah. Thank you, everyone. Thank you for participating. For those of you that are traveling back from various site visits, safe travels. I look forward to following up over the coming days and weeks and giving an update on our outlook for 2026 early in the new year. Thank you very much. This brings to a close today's conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.

This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.