Silver and Critical Mineral Powerhouse: Apollo Silver's MRE at Calico Project with Chris Temple
Summary
Investment Focus: Apollo Silver's Calico Project in California is highlighted as a significant primary silver development stage project in North America, boasting 185 million ounces of silver, including measured, indicated, and inferred resources.
Resource Expansion: The recent mineral resource estimate (MRE) upgrade includes 125 million ounces of silver, a substantial barite resource, and 630 million pounds of zinc, positioning the project as a critical mineral powerhouse.
Strategic Importance: Barite, a critical mineral for the energy industry, is emphasized due to its role in oil and gas drilling, with 50% currently imported from China, underscoring the project's strategic value.
Market Timing: The podcast discusses the timely visibility of Apollo Silver to generalist investors and institutions, especially in light of geopolitical tensions and the competitive situation with China.
Government Engagement: The compliant barite resource is expected to facilitate more serious engagement with the government, potentially aiding in permitting and resource development.
Long-term Outlook: The discussion highlights a favorable policy environment and a potential decade-long positive outlook for critical minerals and commodities, driven by economic and national security imperatives.
Company Strategy: Apollo Silver's strategic plan includes exploration at Calico and potential development of the Cinco de Mayo project in Mexico, which could become as important as Calico.
Market Dynamics: The conversation touches on the broader market dynamics, including the undervaluation of resources compared to tech stocks and the potential for significant investment shifts into resource development.
Transcript
For listeners that are new, uh Chris Temple is the founder of the national investor and Andy Bering is the chairman of Apollo Silver. >> You know, for the last year and a half, we've or a couple years we've been excited to get this bare egg resource because we really believe that that you know, our first critical mineral will allow us to to negotiate for some for some support, whether it's water or you know, permitting support. It's critical to understand for folks out there that the silver that you uh now have in in this resource makes it one of the elite primary silver development stage projects, engineering development stage projects in North America >> at at 185 million ounces of silver. Now I'm combining measured and indicated. 125 measured and indicated and another 57 inferred at Langree plus the other metals plus the 130,000 ounces of gold. Now that doubled but aside from all those other bits and pieces, it is the largest primary undeveloped silver deposit in the United States. It's a first class deposit. If the if the county and the government are on our side, then you know it's it's got a bright future. >> When the generalist investors, the institutions are finally in a place where they can no longer ignore the moves that we've had and gold primarily. Silver's played a little bit of catchup in recent past. Still has more catching up to do. but also with all of the stuff that's been in the news about rare earths and about our competitive situation with China where we're on the short end of things right now and uh they can't ignore this anymore. So, it's very very timely for you to have made yourself even more visible to those types of investors out there. >> For disclosure purposes, Apollo Silver is a paid for client on the investor ideas website. For disclosure purposes, our site does not make recommendations for purchases or sale of stocks, services, or products. Nothing on our site or this podcast should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities. All investing involves risk and possible losses. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. Andy and Chris, it's so great to have you both on the show. for listeners that are new. Uh Chris Temple is the founder of the National Investor and Andy Bering is the chairman of Apollo Silver. So, we're going to start this conversation off. Obviously, I think the most exciting thing is the mineral resource estimate uh that I think everyone has been patiently waiting for. Very exciting news. Chris, do you want to give some commentary of what you um read through? And then Andy obviously I'd love to give um you the floor to give us the whole picture there. >> Calico project in California and Andy on the fourth you came out with some news increasing and putting in the measured indicated category the silver resource now to or what is 125 million ounces of silver. More important or as important uh depending on how people want to look at it. You introduced a pretty substantial barite resource. Sparite being a critical mineral is defined by the US government that we don't produce here these days in the US and is very much needed in the energy industry. So you know it's a big step forward and uh I want to first focus on the silver increase. You you upgraded the silver resource. You have a zinc resource now a little bit of gold. And as you reported in that news release on the 4th, there's still upside for all three of those exploration wise going forward, isn't there? >> There's a lot of upside. You know what I would say is that, you know, there was no new drilling, but effectively metal prices have changed so much that we're able to reduce the cut off of what's economic. And so now, you know, that adds another 14% to the silver resource. Now there's 125 million ounces of silver there that that in that in our mind uh at PA level um is economic and and of course we did a 10,000 reassay program to determine the zinc and barite. And so now you've got 630 plus million pounds of zinc that's in the resource. and and zinc's on the critical mineral list of the US as well, >> right? >> Uh and you've got 3.4 million um metric tons of of barite and barite's on the critical mineral list as well. The last thing I would say is that silver is on the prospective critical mineral list for 2025. Yeah, every 3 years the USGS red does the critical mineral list and and they're concerned about silver and it's an elevated risk. Let let's see if it makes the final list, but but they're talking about it now, which tells me based on the silver narrative we've been living for the last several years. If it doesn't make the list now being elevated, it's probably going to make it uh in the next update. If it does make it, all three all three elements in in our calico deposit on the critical list and and and you know with all your contacts in in Washington that that's going to help us >> down the permitting road and for water like there's just a lot of benefits to having having two or three on the list. Well, and aside from whether it does make that list or not eventually, Andy, I think that it's critical to understand for folks out there that the silver that you uh now have in in in this resource makes it one of the elite primary silver development stage projects, engineering development stage projects in North America >> at a at 185 million ounces of silver. Now I'm combining measured and indicated. 125 measured and indicated and another um 57 inferred at Langree plus the other metals plus the 130,000 ounces of gold. Now that doubled but aside from all those other bits and pieces, it is the largest primary undeveloped silver deposit in the United States. And and when you start to think that that um Equinox and their Castle Mountain just got a Fast 41 expansion permit. And for those people that drive that connector road from LA to New York or to Las Vegas, you know, there's Joshua trees all around that area. They with well-known desert tortoise issue. You know, none of those things are at Calico. and um and it's in a county that needs tax revenues. Like I I think I think we got something there and it's going to take somebody outside the company to to say that. But it's a first class deposit. If the if the county and the government are on our side, then you know it's it's got a bright future. >> Andy, does this change the targets for exploration now? because I I noticed that you have 86% increase in gold even inferred like are we moving towards exploration towards Langry or Waterlue or now that you have the ME what what kind of has anything changed as far as your trajectory forward? Ross Mroy, the recent hire as CEO, isn't here. Uh, and so, you know, I might take words out of well, he's the guy that ultimately decides where and what we're going to do, but we are going to go back to exploration at Calico. WA Waterlue is ready for economic study. We're going to produce a PA on Waterlue and Langree and then that PA will tell us are we going to go through a PFS on Waterlue or can we look at Waterlue and Langry as one operation? That's kind of what we're going to probably determine in 2026. But while that economic study is going on, we're going to do exploration at Langree because we haven't established zinc or barite there yet at all. Uh it's still inferred and it's still open. Even Waterlue is open in a in a couple directions. And uh and then all that new ground, the mule claims that we bought from Lithium Americas, highly prospective for silver. um and that Barstow formation and that main Calico fault run right across right through into that ground. So, so there's some grassroots exploration to do there. There's some advanced exploration at Langree and continued work at Waterlue. There's a lot to do. Well, Calico overall is a great project. We've talked about it before in our all of our different previous discussions. I want to focus for just a second uh Andy on the barite angle because we've talked about this numerous times in the past. Uh it's been inevitable that you were going to have enough information and enough reassays and whatnot to be able to publish the resource you just did to show that you've got when you boil it all down around 2.7 million tons of barite when you're through. For folks that are unfamiliar with that, you know, they hear about silver and gold and zinc. Barit's not mentioned as often as any of those. Remind us what the main uses of that are for and why it's on the critical minerals list. >> Barite is primarily a waiting agent that's used in oil and gas exploration and development. So a 20 a 20 lb sack of flour if it's filled with barite weighs 100 pounds. >> It's heavy. It suspends well in in a bentonite mud. So, it's ideal for keeping the drill pipe and your and your drilling fluids in the well boore when you're drilling. And you know, for those people that when you're drilling for oil, there's gas kicks and gas comes up. And if you don't have barite keeping it down, you get blowouts. And Google blowouts and you'll see what those look like. So, it's something that's that's on every drill site everywhere. 50% of it is imported, I think, from China. That's why it's on the critical mineral list. >> There's a couple small operations in the US or a couple small mines for it. But but it's half of it's imported and and the US is, you know, as you well know, trying to resolve their reliance on imports from the other part of the world, especially the Asian countries. So, >> yeah. Um, it's got a it's got a real opportunity. Uh, drag on for a minute here. There's a there is a military base just south of Calico, >> right? >> A few kilometers south that it's been shut in for a while. They might be using just a little bit of it, but most of it's shut in. And that u military installation has water rights that that we'd very much like to get. And so, you know, for the last year and a half, we've or a couple years, we've been excited to get this barrier resource because we really believe that that, you know, our first critical mineral will allow us to to negotiate for some for some support, whether it's water or, you know, permitting support. >> So, now that that's official that you've reported the spare resource, is that going to uh accelerate some of these discussions with the proper parties? >> Yeah, it will. You know, you can't, you know, it all revolves around having a compliant resource. Until until you got a compliant resource, you really can't talk about it. And now we can. >> Chris, do you want to just kind of give a zoom out overview? Um I feel like you can do the best as uh your position in the states as Andy's mentioned biggest undeveloped silver mine in the US but now with this barite resource added the zinc gold I mean how big of scope do you feel like this project has become in um the US right now at a perfect timing really? Well, look, I I think that especially with this compliant barite resource now, that's going to be the difference I think in getting a lot more serious engagement potentially from the government now than than things would have gotten before. You know, right now we enjoy pretty much the most favorable and positive policy tailwind and tailwind of good intentions and I think you'd agree, Andy. >> Absolutely. Um, you know, the president has issued numerous executive orders trying to push for permitting reform, accelerating things. You mentioned the fast 41 designation, which has been around a little while. That actually predated was done in the last administration, but that Equinox just got to expand their operation. Uh fast 41 of course however did not do a whole hell of a lot of good for resolution copper in Arizona because the ninth circuit still threw a renewed monkey wrench into that operation. So there look there are unquestionably still hurdles out there. There are legislative ones. We have a very ligious society uh where there are way too many kicks at the can for people who want to for you know stall extractive projects simply because that's what they're paid to do. >> So you know that we still have to live with but the big picture has become much more favorable under this administration. And I think with the Barite aspect, I would expect to see something Cali in answer to your question similar to with MP materials project in California. You know, uh I have been saying for a while now that a lot of people in this industry got a little bit prematurely exuberant early this year when the president was pushing for permitting reform and signed the executive orders he did. Not that they don't mean anything. Don't misunderstand. But economics has still got to work. The latigious nature of all this stuff has still got to be fixed. All of these things need to be done. And what the administration showed because we have this serious contest, I've called it for a while, a World War III over currencies and commodities that's already underway. When you consider that the administration, among other things, when the defense department became a major owner basically of MP materials, guaranteed a price roughly double the current market for those finished rare earth products out of that thing. That was huge. And it's an acknowledgement by the government that permitting reform is not going to be enough. We need to be able to break away as well from the sk, you know, the downward skew artificially really and prices where China with a lot of these commodities, they've deliberately lost money on a lot of these things for years just to drive everybody else out of the marketplace. >> Yeah, you bet. >> It's why all the downstream processing for so many of these things is done in China. So I think the fact that we still are importing barite and look it's not looking great right this minute for the domestic oil and gas industry because prices have weakened and you know the rig counts are down and stuff like that but inevitably we will see more drilling they want to open up more lands for drilling and the barite that you're going to have production of one of these days soon we hope Andy at Calico is one of the inputs to making drill baby drill work. Yeah, I I think that administration right now is a major sea change, but I it's it's this is going to continue for for a decade or two. It just it takes so long to to take an a mineral deposit through exploration and economic study and then permitting and then building and it takes years. And so for the last I don't know since World War II we have been trending towards this globalization. We have relied on everywhere else to mine it, process it, finish it, send it back to us. And now we want to switch back. It's like a big freighter. It just doesn't turn on a dime. And so this is going to be I I think that us investors in this space are going to have I don't know 10 15 years of of joy here. They just it's not it's going to take some time but but what wow look at the start. >> You just did your share consolidation Andy. Um it feels you know right timing again and to build that credibility now that you have your ME. Chris, do you want to give some commentary first and then Andy um to follow on the strategic plan of this >> because it was so ridiculously cheap going back a year a year year and a half ago. I told my members who I recommended Apollo to quite some time ago to double and even triple up uh on what they had. And now we've seen the share price go up about fivefold since I told folks to do that. So I'm happy I did. And there's a lot of good exploration stories out there with the kind of seasoned and and proven leadership like Andy represents. And now Ross as well, the new CEO. Uh you know, he he he got what a billion plus out of selling fision uranium. That's not not small potatoes either. >> Exactly. >> I've shared with a lot of people recently something that's very interesting that's been going on in the US market. And of course, a lot of Canadian juniors especially for a long time have bemoaned the markets generally because everybody wants to chase AI stocks, the latest crypto fad, whatever. I don't know if you even are aware of this, Andy. Um, but for a while now I get all of the emails from the usual suspects uh that uh tout continuing education classes that you need to take if you're a registered investment advisor, a FINRA regulated broker. Every so often you've got to take so many credits of classes to uh keep your license and you know prove that you're not a complete idiot. You at least have half an idea what you're doing and what's going on in the world. Did you realize that these days I would say between a quarter and a third of all of them and I get several per week between a quarter and a third of the classes have to do with small cap stocks, precious metals, nuclear energy, commodities generally. Uh they're coming back around and it's very timely for you to have done the share consolidation. You were already, you know, doing very well in the marketplace. So now you got, you know, as we're recording this today, approaching a $4 Canadian share price. And uh that puts you on more radar screens. But just as important as that, it happens for you, Andy, at a time when the generalist investors, the institutions are finally in a place where they can no longer ignore the moves that we've had in gold primarily. Silver's played a little bit of catchup in recent past. Still has more catching up to do. but also with all of the stuff that's been in the news about rare earths and about our our competitive situation with China where we're on the short end of things right now and uh they can't ignore this anymore. So, it's very very timely for you to have made yourself even more visible to those types of investors out there. >> I was saying to somebody this morning, you know, if if if 10% of the ownership of Nvidia decided to sell it, and invest in resource developers, you'd have $420 billion chasing an industry that isn't that big. You know, it's it's crazy. I mean, that's a bit probably bigger than that. But but point is is that our industry is quite small relative to the half the companies that make up the the NASDAQ 100. And and now all of a sudden though we're becoming more important for sure. Gold and silver are becoming an asset class that they talk about. I mean, you know, it used to be that and I remember from I mean I've been around this game for 40 years. I remember 30 years ago watching CNBC and and you didn't get a gold quote on it. >> You didn't get it. >> You know, now now it's one of the primary. It's up there all the time and they're talking about it and they're sovereign banks globally now own more gold than they do US treasuries is what somebody sent me. And so like we're heading in the right direction and finally so so yes there's a marketplace for it. We know that you know when you're a multi-doll stock you blue sky a lot easier in all US states than you do if you're trade in the pennies. You get more respect. Um, so we've got a great shareholder base. There's there was 242 million shares out. Now there's 48 fully diluted. There's 60 million. 8 million of the there's 12 million derivatives. 8 million of those are a warrant at 395. That will bring in $32 million into the treasury that we can spend at Calico or Advancing Sino. and um half the company's owned by insiders, strategics and funds. So when you think about what's left for the retail public, it's not a great big float. And so, you know, I think um and you know, it's and I don't know if it's really fair not to project share price, but I like you kept buying more of this. My family kept buying more of it to the point where, you know, collectively my family and I own about 11% of this company. We bought it all the way down at 8 cents. People can go follow my insiders. I I bought another quarter million bucks worth of stock last week. Like I think we got a tiger by the tail. >> I think it's I think it's going to trade at multiples of this price given time. But, you know, that's my bullish nature. and and and the and the and the truth is we we got a tailwind like we haven't had in 15 or 20 years. So, you know, now's the opportunity. >> And Cali, you know, I I did her investor boot camp with Cali and some other people back in in June. And I a couple of the slides I shared the old anecdote about if you want to know what's really hot in the marketplace, your newspaper delivery boy or your cab driver these days, Uber driver I guess. And I had a couple of slides showing the Uber driver today, you know, turning across looking over the back seat and saying, "Hey, did I can I tell you about all of the AI stocks I'm in right now?" and you know 8 or 10 or 12 years somebody's going to turn around and say hey you want to hear about all the critical metals and precious metals stocks I bought >> well yeah and you mentioned MP just a few minutes ago I mean the Pentagon put 500 million into that and so did Apple and Apple put a pile of money into it too like you know now we're getting vertical integration we're not just getting the banks and the investment funds putting money in we're getting government and and industry putting money in to to to advance um the development of all these projects faster, better, bigger. >> Yeah. >> You know, talk about a tailwind. >> We just had the Fed cut two days ago. Um and the setup for just silver in general and the commodities markets because I mean we've seen silver hit 42 43. Maybe we get a little bit of a technical pullback, but what are you seeing kind of as we round out the end of the year for the commodity space? Well, look, long-term and I still have some concern over the massive bubbles that we have in certain parts of the financial markets right now in a lot of the corporate debt in semi many areas of the stock market certainly not where most resources are concerned which are undervalued but everybody is you know and this is very well known they've piled into the mag 10 stocks to the cryptos to the you know the AI stuff the chips all that kind of thing and those are just the stupid nosebleleed valuations. Uh you know if and when those correct and I think it's more when the question is near-term especially if you had a more substantial overall market correction that's the kind of thing that would take everything down with it. I mean even uranium stocks which have been hot white hot again recently you'd have people selling them not because they want to sell them but because they've got margin calls and they got to get liquid at least for a while. So, you've always got that danger near term that you're going to finally have the steam, you know, come off of everything and it's going to affect everybody. That aside, long-term, >> the mantra of the Fed, uh, Andy, you're old enough like I am to remember who Richard Russell was of the Dow Theory letters, >> and he was the one that coined the famous term inflate or die, >> and that's where all the world's central banks are, uh, including the Fed. the Fed wants to inflate slowly and give a bunch of mumbo jumbo reasons about it. That this 2% inflation target, forget about it. >> You know, Trump himself has come out and said, "I want a weaker dollar. I want plenty of them so that we can better manage the debt." Well, of course, that and he's honest about it. >> The only way you handle the debt right now is to inflate your way out of it. >> That's right. >> And that means the values of all these various things go up. And what I'm excited about, and again, even though it may cause some near-term headaches for the economy, inevitably there will again be much more aggressive fiscal stimulus from Washington. When it comes, it's going to be almost entirely focused on these things that we've only seen the first fruits of. Now, you know, getting our own energy situation in order, getting our own metals and downstream industries back under our control. Look at what the president just did in the UK where nuclear energy is concerned. Um, so there's a lot of money that's gone into some of these more questionable areas that the average person doesn't understand, but inevitably we're going to see not just inflation give the tailwind it traditionally does to all of these different commodities. And I think, you know, validate what Andy said a few minutes ago. We've got 10 or 15 or maybe 20 years ahead of us uh as valuations and commodities get somewhere's near what they are for these other sectors. But we could get a jump start or two along the way because it's going to be an economic and national security imperative that the government really get a lot more serious. I mean, the permitting reform being discussed and some of the measures that have been taken, the MP materials, the handful of grants that we've seen so far from energy and defense departments, those are nothing compared to what's going to have to come down the road, and it's going to support all commodities. >> Andy, Chris, I don't want to keep you guys all day, but do you want to have any closing remarks um on Apollo, what investors can u pay attention to or look forward to? And then Chris, do you want to give any commentary for a close as well? >> All right. So, what I would say about Apollo is, and we're not talking about Cinco deto, but you know, we have an option on a worldass project in northern Mexico. Uh the CEO and I were just there for three days uh in the community. Uh those of us those of you that follow Apollo know well the issues at Cinco de Mayo and to I guess what I would say is that based on my 35 years in this industry and having fixed problems like this globally we're really close to telling the street something about Cinco de Mayo and and I and again I'm just going to say it just it it we got a tiger by the tail. It It's going to become as important to this company as Calico and maybe exceed it by several fold. The the future looks pretty bright and that's all I can say right now. I know it's forward-looking and it's leading, but I'm it's there's there's good news on the horizon. But I'll only wrap that up by saying that uh you know there's only a handful of people uh in this industry who have got the stature and have been able to raise the money for good projects and cash out many of them like Andy has done. And so I've got all the confidence in the world he's going to make this work. [Music]
Silver and Critical Mineral Powerhouse: Apollo Silver's MRE at Calico Project with Chris Temple
Summary
Transcript
For listeners that are new, uh Chris Temple is the founder of the national investor and Andy Bering is the chairman of Apollo Silver. >> You know, for the last year and a half, we've or a couple years we've been excited to get this bare egg resource because we really believe that that you know, our first critical mineral will allow us to to negotiate for some for some support, whether it's water or you know, permitting support. It's critical to understand for folks out there that the silver that you uh now have in in this resource makes it one of the elite primary silver development stage projects, engineering development stage projects in North America >> at at 185 million ounces of silver. Now I'm combining measured and indicated. 125 measured and indicated and another 57 inferred at Langree plus the other metals plus the 130,000 ounces of gold. Now that doubled but aside from all those other bits and pieces, it is the largest primary undeveloped silver deposit in the United States. It's a first class deposit. If the if the county and the government are on our side, then you know it's it's got a bright future. >> When the generalist investors, the institutions are finally in a place where they can no longer ignore the moves that we've had and gold primarily. Silver's played a little bit of catchup in recent past. Still has more catching up to do. but also with all of the stuff that's been in the news about rare earths and about our competitive situation with China where we're on the short end of things right now and uh they can't ignore this anymore. So, it's very very timely for you to have made yourself even more visible to those types of investors out there. >> For disclosure purposes, Apollo Silver is a paid for client on the investor ideas website. For disclosure purposes, our site does not make recommendations for purchases or sale of stocks, services, or products. Nothing on our site or this podcast should be construed as an offer or solicitation to buy or sell products or securities. All investing involves risk and possible losses. This podcast is for entertainment purposes only. Andy and Chris, it's so great to have you both on the show. for listeners that are new. Uh Chris Temple is the founder of the National Investor and Andy Bering is the chairman of Apollo Silver. So, we're going to start this conversation off. Obviously, I think the most exciting thing is the mineral resource estimate uh that I think everyone has been patiently waiting for. Very exciting news. Chris, do you want to give some commentary of what you um read through? And then Andy obviously I'd love to give um you the floor to give us the whole picture there. >> Calico project in California and Andy on the fourth you came out with some news increasing and putting in the measured indicated category the silver resource now to or what is 125 million ounces of silver. More important or as important uh depending on how people want to look at it. You introduced a pretty substantial barite resource. Sparite being a critical mineral is defined by the US government that we don't produce here these days in the US and is very much needed in the energy industry. So you know it's a big step forward and uh I want to first focus on the silver increase. You you upgraded the silver resource. You have a zinc resource now a little bit of gold. And as you reported in that news release on the 4th, there's still upside for all three of those exploration wise going forward, isn't there? >> There's a lot of upside. You know what I would say is that, you know, there was no new drilling, but effectively metal prices have changed so much that we're able to reduce the cut off of what's economic. And so now, you know, that adds another 14% to the silver resource. Now there's 125 million ounces of silver there that that in that in our mind uh at PA level um is economic and and of course we did a 10,000 reassay program to determine the zinc and barite. And so now you've got 630 plus million pounds of zinc that's in the resource. and and zinc's on the critical mineral list of the US as well, >> right? >> Uh and you've got 3.4 million um metric tons of of barite and barite's on the critical mineral list as well. The last thing I would say is that silver is on the prospective critical mineral list for 2025. Yeah, every 3 years the USGS red does the critical mineral list and and they're concerned about silver and it's an elevated risk. Let let's see if it makes the final list, but but they're talking about it now, which tells me based on the silver narrative we've been living for the last several years. If it doesn't make the list now being elevated, it's probably going to make it uh in the next update. If it does make it, all three all three elements in in our calico deposit on the critical list and and and you know with all your contacts in in Washington that that's going to help us >> down the permitting road and for water like there's just a lot of benefits to having having two or three on the list. Well, and aside from whether it does make that list or not eventually, Andy, I think that it's critical to understand for folks out there that the silver that you uh now have in in in this resource makes it one of the elite primary silver development stage projects, engineering development stage projects in North America >> at a at 185 million ounces of silver. Now I'm combining measured and indicated. 125 measured and indicated and another um 57 inferred at Langree plus the other metals plus the 130,000 ounces of gold. Now that doubled but aside from all those other bits and pieces, it is the largest primary undeveloped silver deposit in the United States. And and when you start to think that that um Equinox and their Castle Mountain just got a Fast 41 expansion permit. And for those people that drive that connector road from LA to New York or to Las Vegas, you know, there's Joshua trees all around that area. They with well-known desert tortoise issue. You know, none of those things are at Calico. and um and it's in a county that needs tax revenues. Like I I think I think we got something there and it's going to take somebody outside the company to to say that. But it's a first class deposit. If the if the county and the government are on our side, then you know it's it's got a bright future. >> Andy, does this change the targets for exploration now? because I I noticed that you have 86% increase in gold even inferred like are we moving towards exploration towards Langry or Waterlue or now that you have the ME what what kind of has anything changed as far as your trajectory forward? Ross Mroy, the recent hire as CEO, isn't here. Uh, and so, you know, I might take words out of well, he's the guy that ultimately decides where and what we're going to do, but we are going to go back to exploration at Calico. WA Waterlue is ready for economic study. We're going to produce a PA on Waterlue and Langree and then that PA will tell us are we going to go through a PFS on Waterlue or can we look at Waterlue and Langry as one operation? That's kind of what we're going to probably determine in 2026. But while that economic study is going on, we're going to do exploration at Langree because we haven't established zinc or barite there yet at all. Uh it's still inferred and it's still open. Even Waterlue is open in a in a couple directions. And uh and then all that new ground, the mule claims that we bought from Lithium Americas, highly prospective for silver. um and that Barstow formation and that main Calico fault run right across right through into that ground. So, so there's some grassroots exploration to do there. There's some advanced exploration at Langree and continued work at Waterlue. There's a lot to do. Well, Calico overall is a great project. We've talked about it before in our all of our different previous discussions. I want to focus for just a second uh Andy on the barite angle because we've talked about this numerous times in the past. Uh it's been inevitable that you were going to have enough information and enough reassays and whatnot to be able to publish the resource you just did to show that you've got when you boil it all down around 2.7 million tons of barite when you're through. For folks that are unfamiliar with that, you know, they hear about silver and gold and zinc. Barit's not mentioned as often as any of those. Remind us what the main uses of that are for and why it's on the critical minerals list. >> Barite is primarily a waiting agent that's used in oil and gas exploration and development. So a 20 a 20 lb sack of flour if it's filled with barite weighs 100 pounds. >> It's heavy. It suspends well in in a bentonite mud. So, it's ideal for keeping the drill pipe and your and your drilling fluids in the well boore when you're drilling. And you know, for those people that when you're drilling for oil, there's gas kicks and gas comes up. And if you don't have barite keeping it down, you get blowouts. And Google blowouts and you'll see what those look like. So, it's something that's that's on every drill site everywhere. 50% of it is imported, I think, from China. That's why it's on the critical mineral list. >> There's a couple small operations in the US or a couple small mines for it. But but it's half of it's imported and and the US is, you know, as you well know, trying to resolve their reliance on imports from the other part of the world, especially the Asian countries. So, >> yeah. Um, it's got a it's got a real opportunity. Uh, drag on for a minute here. There's a there is a military base just south of Calico, >> right? >> A few kilometers south that it's been shut in for a while. They might be using just a little bit of it, but most of it's shut in. And that u military installation has water rights that that we'd very much like to get. And so, you know, for the last year and a half, we've or a couple years, we've been excited to get this barrier resource because we really believe that that, you know, our first critical mineral will allow us to to negotiate for some for some support, whether it's water or, you know, permitting support. >> So, now that that's official that you've reported the spare resource, is that going to uh accelerate some of these discussions with the proper parties? >> Yeah, it will. You know, you can't, you know, it all revolves around having a compliant resource. Until until you got a compliant resource, you really can't talk about it. And now we can. >> Chris, do you want to just kind of give a zoom out overview? Um I feel like you can do the best as uh your position in the states as Andy's mentioned biggest undeveloped silver mine in the US but now with this barite resource added the zinc gold I mean how big of scope do you feel like this project has become in um the US right now at a perfect timing really? Well, look, I I think that especially with this compliant barite resource now, that's going to be the difference I think in getting a lot more serious engagement potentially from the government now than than things would have gotten before. You know, right now we enjoy pretty much the most favorable and positive policy tailwind and tailwind of good intentions and I think you'd agree, Andy. >> Absolutely. Um, you know, the president has issued numerous executive orders trying to push for permitting reform, accelerating things. You mentioned the fast 41 designation, which has been around a little while. That actually predated was done in the last administration, but that Equinox just got to expand their operation. Uh fast 41 of course however did not do a whole hell of a lot of good for resolution copper in Arizona because the ninth circuit still threw a renewed monkey wrench into that operation. So there look there are unquestionably still hurdles out there. There are legislative ones. We have a very ligious society uh where there are way too many kicks at the can for people who want to for you know stall extractive projects simply because that's what they're paid to do. >> So you know that we still have to live with but the big picture has become much more favorable under this administration. And I think with the Barite aspect, I would expect to see something Cali in answer to your question similar to with MP materials project in California. You know, uh I have been saying for a while now that a lot of people in this industry got a little bit prematurely exuberant early this year when the president was pushing for permitting reform and signed the executive orders he did. Not that they don't mean anything. Don't misunderstand. But economics has still got to work. The latigious nature of all this stuff has still got to be fixed. All of these things need to be done. And what the administration showed because we have this serious contest, I've called it for a while, a World War III over currencies and commodities that's already underway. When you consider that the administration, among other things, when the defense department became a major owner basically of MP materials, guaranteed a price roughly double the current market for those finished rare earth products out of that thing. That was huge. And it's an acknowledgement by the government that permitting reform is not going to be enough. We need to be able to break away as well from the sk, you know, the downward skew artificially really and prices where China with a lot of these commodities, they've deliberately lost money on a lot of these things for years just to drive everybody else out of the marketplace. >> Yeah, you bet. >> It's why all the downstream processing for so many of these things is done in China. So I think the fact that we still are importing barite and look it's not looking great right this minute for the domestic oil and gas industry because prices have weakened and you know the rig counts are down and stuff like that but inevitably we will see more drilling they want to open up more lands for drilling and the barite that you're going to have production of one of these days soon we hope Andy at Calico is one of the inputs to making drill baby drill work. Yeah, I I think that administration right now is a major sea change, but I it's it's this is going to continue for for a decade or two. It just it takes so long to to take an a mineral deposit through exploration and economic study and then permitting and then building and it takes years. And so for the last I don't know since World War II we have been trending towards this globalization. We have relied on everywhere else to mine it, process it, finish it, send it back to us. And now we want to switch back. It's like a big freighter. It just doesn't turn on a dime. And so this is going to be I I think that us investors in this space are going to have I don't know 10 15 years of of joy here. They just it's not it's going to take some time but but what wow look at the start. >> You just did your share consolidation Andy. Um it feels you know right timing again and to build that credibility now that you have your ME. Chris, do you want to give some commentary first and then Andy um to follow on the strategic plan of this >> because it was so ridiculously cheap going back a year a year year and a half ago. I told my members who I recommended Apollo to quite some time ago to double and even triple up uh on what they had. And now we've seen the share price go up about fivefold since I told folks to do that. So I'm happy I did. And there's a lot of good exploration stories out there with the kind of seasoned and and proven leadership like Andy represents. And now Ross as well, the new CEO. Uh you know, he he he got what a billion plus out of selling fision uranium. That's not not small potatoes either. >> Exactly. >> I've shared with a lot of people recently something that's very interesting that's been going on in the US market. And of course, a lot of Canadian juniors especially for a long time have bemoaned the markets generally because everybody wants to chase AI stocks, the latest crypto fad, whatever. I don't know if you even are aware of this, Andy. Um, but for a while now I get all of the emails from the usual suspects uh that uh tout continuing education classes that you need to take if you're a registered investment advisor, a FINRA regulated broker. Every so often you've got to take so many credits of classes to uh keep your license and you know prove that you're not a complete idiot. You at least have half an idea what you're doing and what's going on in the world. Did you realize that these days I would say between a quarter and a third of all of them and I get several per week between a quarter and a third of the classes have to do with small cap stocks, precious metals, nuclear energy, commodities generally. Uh they're coming back around and it's very timely for you to have done the share consolidation. You were already, you know, doing very well in the marketplace. So now you got, you know, as we're recording this today, approaching a $4 Canadian share price. And uh that puts you on more radar screens. But just as important as that, it happens for you, Andy, at a time when the generalist investors, the institutions are finally in a place where they can no longer ignore the moves that we've had in gold primarily. Silver's played a little bit of catchup in recent past. Still has more catching up to do. but also with all of the stuff that's been in the news about rare earths and about our our competitive situation with China where we're on the short end of things right now and uh they can't ignore this anymore. So, it's very very timely for you to have made yourself even more visible to those types of investors out there. >> I was saying to somebody this morning, you know, if if if 10% of the ownership of Nvidia decided to sell it, and invest in resource developers, you'd have $420 billion chasing an industry that isn't that big. You know, it's it's crazy. I mean, that's a bit probably bigger than that. But but point is is that our industry is quite small relative to the half the companies that make up the the NASDAQ 100. And and now all of a sudden though we're becoming more important for sure. Gold and silver are becoming an asset class that they talk about. I mean, you know, it used to be that and I remember from I mean I've been around this game for 40 years. I remember 30 years ago watching CNBC and and you didn't get a gold quote on it. >> You didn't get it. >> You know, now now it's one of the primary. It's up there all the time and they're talking about it and they're sovereign banks globally now own more gold than they do US treasuries is what somebody sent me. And so like we're heading in the right direction and finally so so yes there's a marketplace for it. We know that you know when you're a multi-doll stock you blue sky a lot easier in all US states than you do if you're trade in the pennies. You get more respect. Um, so we've got a great shareholder base. There's there was 242 million shares out. Now there's 48 fully diluted. There's 60 million. 8 million of the there's 12 million derivatives. 8 million of those are a warrant at 395. That will bring in $32 million into the treasury that we can spend at Calico or Advancing Sino. and um half the company's owned by insiders, strategics and funds. So when you think about what's left for the retail public, it's not a great big float. And so, you know, I think um and you know, it's and I don't know if it's really fair not to project share price, but I like you kept buying more of this. My family kept buying more of it to the point where, you know, collectively my family and I own about 11% of this company. We bought it all the way down at 8 cents. People can go follow my insiders. I I bought another quarter million bucks worth of stock last week. Like I think we got a tiger by the tail. >> I think it's I think it's going to trade at multiples of this price given time. But, you know, that's my bullish nature. and and and the and the and the truth is we we got a tailwind like we haven't had in 15 or 20 years. So, you know, now's the opportunity. >> And Cali, you know, I I did her investor boot camp with Cali and some other people back in in June. And I a couple of the slides I shared the old anecdote about if you want to know what's really hot in the marketplace, your newspaper delivery boy or your cab driver these days, Uber driver I guess. And I had a couple of slides showing the Uber driver today, you know, turning across looking over the back seat and saying, "Hey, did I can I tell you about all of the AI stocks I'm in right now?" and you know 8 or 10 or 12 years somebody's going to turn around and say hey you want to hear about all the critical metals and precious metals stocks I bought >> well yeah and you mentioned MP just a few minutes ago I mean the Pentagon put 500 million into that and so did Apple and Apple put a pile of money into it too like you know now we're getting vertical integration we're not just getting the banks and the investment funds putting money in we're getting government and and industry putting money in to to to advance um the development of all these projects faster, better, bigger. >> Yeah. >> You know, talk about a tailwind. >> We just had the Fed cut two days ago. Um and the setup for just silver in general and the commodities markets because I mean we've seen silver hit 42 43. Maybe we get a little bit of a technical pullback, but what are you seeing kind of as we round out the end of the year for the commodity space? Well, look, long-term and I still have some concern over the massive bubbles that we have in certain parts of the financial markets right now in a lot of the corporate debt in semi many areas of the stock market certainly not where most resources are concerned which are undervalued but everybody is you know and this is very well known they've piled into the mag 10 stocks to the cryptos to the you know the AI stuff the chips all that kind of thing and those are just the stupid nosebleleed valuations. Uh you know if and when those correct and I think it's more when the question is near-term especially if you had a more substantial overall market correction that's the kind of thing that would take everything down with it. I mean even uranium stocks which have been hot white hot again recently you'd have people selling them not because they want to sell them but because they've got margin calls and they got to get liquid at least for a while. So, you've always got that danger near term that you're going to finally have the steam, you know, come off of everything and it's going to affect everybody. That aside, long-term, >> the mantra of the Fed, uh, Andy, you're old enough like I am to remember who Richard Russell was of the Dow Theory letters, >> and he was the one that coined the famous term inflate or die, >> and that's where all the world's central banks are, uh, including the Fed. the Fed wants to inflate slowly and give a bunch of mumbo jumbo reasons about it. That this 2% inflation target, forget about it. >> You know, Trump himself has come out and said, "I want a weaker dollar. I want plenty of them so that we can better manage the debt." Well, of course, that and he's honest about it. >> The only way you handle the debt right now is to inflate your way out of it. >> That's right. >> And that means the values of all these various things go up. And what I'm excited about, and again, even though it may cause some near-term headaches for the economy, inevitably there will again be much more aggressive fiscal stimulus from Washington. When it comes, it's going to be almost entirely focused on these things that we've only seen the first fruits of. Now, you know, getting our own energy situation in order, getting our own metals and downstream industries back under our control. Look at what the president just did in the UK where nuclear energy is concerned. Um, so there's a lot of money that's gone into some of these more questionable areas that the average person doesn't understand, but inevitably we're going to see not just inflation give the tailwind it traditionally does to all of these different commodities. And I think, you know, validate what Andy said a few minutes ago. We've got 10 or 15 or maybe 20 years ahead of us uh as valuations and commodities get somewhere's near what they are for these other sectors. But we could get a jump start or two along the way because it's going to be an economic and national security imperative that the government really get a lot more serious. I mean, the permitting reform being discussed and some of the measures that have been taken, the MP materials, the handful of grants that we've seen so far from energy and defense departments, those are nothing compared to what's going to have to come down the road, and it's going to support all commodities. >> Andy, Chris, I don't want to keep you guys all day, but do you want to have any closing remarks um on Apollo, what investors can u pay attention to or look forward to? And then Chris, do you want to give any commentary for a close as well? >> All right. So, what I would say about Apollo is, and we're not talking about Cinco deto, but you know, we have an option on a worldass project in northern Mexico. Uh the CEO and I were just there for three days uh in the community. Uh those of us those of you that follow Apollo know well the issues at Cinco de Mayo and to I guess what I would say is that based on my 35 years in this industry and having fixed problems like this globally we're really close to telling the street something about Cinco de Mayo and and I and again I'm just going to say it just it it we got a tiger by the tail. It It's going to become as important to this company as Calico and maybe exceed it by several fold. The the future looks pretty bright and that's all I can say right now. I know it's forward-looking and it's leading, but I'm it's there's there's good news on the horizon. But I'll only wrap that up by saying that uh you know there's only a handful of people uh in this industry who have got the stature and have been able to raise the money for good projects and cash out many of them like Andy has done. And so I've got all the confidence in the world he's going to make this work. [Music]