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Furnas Project

  • Overview
  • Reserves & Resources
  • Technical Report

Overview

Overview

The Furnas Copper-Gold Project is an iron oxide copper gold (IOCG) deposit located approximately 50 kilometers southeast of Vale Base Metals’ Salobo operations and about 190 kilometers northeast of the Tucumã Operation. The project covers roughly 2,400 hectares within the Carajás Mineral Province and sits less than fifteen kilometers from extensive regional infrastructure, including paved roads, an industrial-scale cement plant, a power substation, and Vale’s railroad loadout facility.1

Currently 100% owned by Vale Base Metals, Ero holds the right to earn a 60% interest through a staged earn-in agreement signed in July 2024.

In February 2026, Ero announced the results of an inaugural preliminary economic assessment (PEA) with strong underlying economics, supported by low capital intensity, first quartile operating costs and an attractive internal rate of return across a wide spectrum of commodity prices. The PEA contemplates the development of Furnas as a large-scale, long-life mining operation comprising four distinct operating areas, incorporating a series of selective open pits and two underground mines within the two primary high-grade zones of the deposit – the Southeast and Northwest Zones. Mine production from open pit and underground mines will feed a centralized processing facility with a design capacity of 13.5 million tonnes per annum. Conventional flotation will produce a copper concentrate with significant gold and silver by-product credits over an initial 24-year mine life.

The PEA is preliminary in nature and includes inferred mineral resources, which are considered too speculative geologically to have the economic considerations applied to them that would enable them to be categorized as mineral reserves, and there is no certainty that the PEA will be realized. Mineral resources that are not mineral reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability.

For information on the Furnas earn-in agreement and PEA, please see the Company’s press releases dated October 30, 2023, July 22, 2024, and February 23, 2026.

¹The proximity of the Furnas Copper-Gold Project to world class copper, iron ore and other mineral deposits is not indicative of the continuity, scale, or presence of economic mineralization.

Primary Commodities

Copper and Gold

Ownership

Earn-in agreement with Vale Base Metals to acquire a 60% interest in the project

Initial Mine Life:

24 years

After-Tax Net Present Value (8%):

$2.0 billion¹

After-Tax Internal Rate of Return:

27.0%¹

Avg. Annual Copper Equivalent² Production:

~108,000 tonnes (first 15 years) / ~81,000 (LOM)

Avg. C1 Cash Cost (per lb of copper produced):

$0.24 (first 15 years) / $0.30 (LOM)

1Based on long-term metal prices of $4.60/lb Cu, $3,300/oz Au, and $40.00/oz Ag.
2Copper equivalent calculated using long-term metal prices of $4.60/lb Cu, $3,300/oz Au, and $40.00/oz Ag.

Classification Tonnage
(000 tonnes)		 Grade
(gpt Au)		 Contained Au
(000 ounces)

Updated Mineral Resource Estimate

Category Tonnes (Mt) Grade Contained Metal
Cu (%) Au (g/t) Ag (g/t) CuEq(1) (%) Cu (kt) Au (koz) Ag (koz) CuEq(1) (kt)
Open Pit
Indicated 272.2 0.59 0.31 1.66 0.83 1,594 2,748 14,546 2,252
Inferred 117.1 0.51 0.31 1.24 0.75 601 1,160 4,662 876
Underground
Indicated 3.4 0.57 0.23 1.44 0.75 19 25 156 25
Inferred 78.8 0.53 0.31 1.50 0.77 418 791 3,809 607
Indicated 275.6 0.59 0.31 1.66 0.83 1,613 2,773 14,702 2,277
Inferred 195.9 0.52 0.31 1.34 0.76 1,020 1,952 8,470 1,483

Note: See “Mineral Resources Notes” below and/or the Company’s press release dated February 23, 2026 for additional technical and scientific information. For more information on the Phase 1 drill program, please see the Company’s press releases dated July 10, 2025, and September 18, 2025.

1. CuEq grade for the updated mineral resource estimate calculated as Cu grade + ((Au grade x 0.03215 x $2,500 gold price x 74.6% gold metallurgical recovery) + (Ag grade x 0.03215 x $24.00 silver price x 71.0% silver metallurgical recovery)) / (0.01 x $9,039/tonne copper price x 90.3% copper metallurgical recovery).

Mineral Resources Notes:

  1. Effective Date of November 30, 2025, and presented on a 100% ownership basis.
  2. Mineral Resources that are not Mineral Reserves do not have demonstrated economic viability. Summed amounts may not add due to rounding.
  3. Mineral resources have been estimated using a copper price of US$9,039/tonne, a gold price of US$2,500/oz, a silver price of US$24.00/oz, a USD:BRL foreign exchange rate of 5.50, and copper, gold, and silver metallurgical recovery rates of 90.3%, 74.6%, and 71.0%, respectively. The estimation was constrained using Datamine’s MSO for underground and Studio NPVS for open pit optimization. The applied copper-equivalent cut-off grades were 0.45% (break-even) and 0.43% (marginal) for underground, and 0.20% (break-even) and 0.17% (marginal) for open pit. Mineral resources were estimated using ordinary kriging within a 25-meter by 25-meter by 4-meter block size (X, Y, Z), with a minimum sub-block size of 6.25 meters by 6.25 meters by 2.0 meters.
  4. João Estevão Junior, MAIG, of SDPM, an independent qualified person within the meanings of NI 43-101, supervised the preparation and validation of the mineral resource estimate.
  5. The Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (“CIM”) Definition Standards (2014) were used for reporting Mineral Resources. The Mineral Resource estimate is reported on an in situ basis, with no operational, planned, or internal mining dilution, and no mining recovery factors applied. Minimum mining widths and/or geological constraints incorporated in the estimation methodology were applied to reflect reasonable mining selectivity and geological continuity and do not represent the application of operational dilution.

Technical Report