Argentina Macro: Bullish case on Argentina as a resource-rich, geopolitically insulated supplier with improving governance, investor-friendly reforms, and stabilizing inflation.
Salta Jurisdiction: Emphasis on Salta Province as a safe, mining-friendly jurisdiction with strong legal protections and robust infrastructure (rail, roads, power, gas, solar links).
Pure Silver Thesis: The guest pitches a pure silver deposit with minimal byproduct metals, enabling a clean silver concentrate and stronger leverage to silver prices versus byproduct producers.
Resource Expansion: Focus on expanding a ~50 Moz high-grade silver resource via step-out drilling and a large geophysical program, with metallurgy underway to refine recoveries and economics.
Project Scale: Only ~3% of the land package has defined resources; extensive exploration aims to identify additional targets across 60 km² and potentially multiple deposits.
Geological Upside: Evidence of multiple mineral systems (silver epithermal and separate copper-gold porphyry-style) reinforces the property's discovery potential.
Capital and Execution: Strong treasury and backing from the Fiore Group and long-term shareholders support an aggressive, systematic build-out without shortcutting key de-risking steps.
Strategic Vision: Goal to build a long-lasting, Latin America-focused silver company, exploring M&A while advancing the flagship asset toward economic studies.
Transcript
When Barry gave back the project [music] to Golden Minerals, the previous operator, I said, "Okay, this is our chance. >> This is J. Martin." >> Well, it's great to have you in the studio, man. I'm excited to have this conversation. >> Me, too. I'm very excited about that. Uh, thank you for inviting me. >> Yeah, my pleasure. So, I want to unpack your business today. Uh, I'm a shareholder of your business. We're going to talk about this. There's many layers that I want to cover today and I felt like the smartest one to start with is the geopolitical thesis behind Argenta silver meaning that you're based in Argentina uh country that's seen seismic shifts in the last few years right after 80 years of lost productivity. So what's relevant today from a headland standpoint in Argentina? What do investors need to know and what should they be paying attention to on the ground especially in Salta where you are but country specific what what matters today? Well, I think that that's a very important point, Jay, because when you start thinking on the macro, right? Argentina has always been marginal to the global issues from world wars from the first world war, the second world war. Argentina has been always marginal providing or supplying the world with resources. >> Yeah. So being that far away in this moment where the world is completely chaotic, you know how many issues are around there and I believe I'm a true believer that there will be some disruption on the supply chains as it's happening now with the oil and that's why oil prices are going up. I believe that we will see major disruptions in the future for different commodities and that's going to affect the metals when I think that Argentina has a geopolitical position that it's very particular being far away from all those issues and being able to provide the world with resources in the future particularly the Salta province where we are located Argentina first of all it's a it's a multi-jurisdictional country, every province, it's a jurisdiction per se. So, Salta, it's a very very good jurisdiction. It's very safe to work there. Uh, it's the only province that still have a judicial court of mining. That means that every issue that it's in between the administration and the owners of projects, it's resolved by judge and judge are independent of whoever government it's on turn. So that gives an extra layer of protection on uh the legal framework of the province. So very safe jurisdiction. It's a place where I recommend people just to go and cruise with their children in the province, travel around. Beautiful landscapes, jungle and and and the mountains. So tourism it's very big industry there and that speaks a lot about how safety or how safe is the the jurisdiction as it is. Right. So we are very well located. Um the project itself it's in a fantastic position. Uh we have a railroad. We have a road that it's all year open. We have a gas pipeline coming to us. We have a major power line coming to us. That power line it's connected to the national grid in Argentina and it's connected to two solar farms that are in there. So, uh, from big to small, you can see that it's getting better and better and better. >> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I love that. And, you know, my wife went to school in Buenos, and she hasn't got me down there yet, but it's pretty high in the list actually for us. And, you know, Argentina is a country that's received a lot of support from the American president, right? Uh, his recent election and there was a financing package last year. I think a lot of people misunderstood that, right? What was the why behind that uh action? and and to me it's like Argentina is one of the most minerally endowed countries on the planet, right? And leveraged that very effectively until around the 1930s and that's when trouble began and persisted for around 80 years. But prior to that, one of the wealthiest countries in the world because they leveraged that natural resource wealth very effectively with a massive coastline. That to me was always the reason that the Americans had such a vested interest in Argentina because as we continue to fracture the geopolitical chessboard, countries aren't sharing the way they used to. Those alliances are way more important today than they ever have been, at least in my lifetime. And Argentina is like top of the list. It's in the Americas. It's got to be an ally of the United States. So, there's a lot of leverage there. and this new government uh it's creating us all these new alliances in between uh Europe, in between Asia, between North America. So he's not kicking anybody out of the game. He's very inclusive. You know, he might have preferences for one or the other, but he's not closing doors drastically. And that's allowing the country to start opening different styles of businesses with different customers around the globe. And uh it's it's good to have a government like this which already had the confirmation of the support of people on the midterm elections uh from from last year. So we are starting to see how the government has been empowering itself or or or getting stronger and stronger. how the image of this government has been growing more and more and more. Uh one of the key elements I think that happened in the country is that uh inflation the ramping inflation was stop. >> Yeah. >> Not to zero but it was it was kind of we pushed the brake on that >> been very muted. >> Yeah. It was a ramping inflation situation where you know you could see prices written in in in pencil in some places. you know some people couldn't give you a list of prices because the day after those prices would be different because of inflation. So having this situation of stopping or breaking down on the inflation uh opening the doors to the world bringing new industries um bringing all these legal framework that it's supporting the country to to move forward in big time. I'm talking about the rigi. So the rig it's a it's a legal framework for large investments in Argentina. There is another one that was created in the '90s. Uh we are very happy that the subsidiary in Argentina has applied to that one in the '90s. So we have kind of a similar regime applied to our company in Argentina from the the previous law. But this law that MLE has created, it's a large investment incentive program which helps companies to thrive in Argentina and gives them a lot of uh stability, fiscal stability, legal stability. Uh taxes are much lower than in other jurisdictions and uh we are watching investments of for example $18 billion from BHP and Lundin in Argentina. um $7 billion from Riotinto in lithium, uh billionaire investments in the agro businesses, billionaire investments in the real estate industries. Uh there's going to be built a data center which is going to cost billions of dollars >> in Argentina. So all these coming into the country is very powerful and obviously you know one thing is dragging the other and and mining it's one of the pillars of this government >> to rebuild the economy of the country. >> I love that and thank you for the context. Now you know you and your your original capital partner being the Fury group led by Frank Gustra and Gourd Keep >> and the whole engine behind that organization now I think around 100 people in the office half of them are mining engineers you know they've birthe some of the most successful companies in the resource sector ever like Wheaton uh Endeavor Mining and more recently the Fior portfolio of companies argenta being one that was one of the top performers last year but obviously you two were aligned on what you saw in the Salta province. And it struck me as very textbook from a Frank Gustra standpoint and that he found an asset that somebody else had already invested a couple hundred million into and then ran into financial trouble and had to step back, right? And that's the opportunity that I've seen him capitalize on many times. Is that a fair summation of how this original transaction came together? I mean, it was a $3.5 million transaction for an asset that had $und00 million of drilling put into it. Something like this. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's that's the story. So, look, it's the story. I think that it goes back a little bit more. And this is something that I I haven't made that much public. So, probably you you will make this public to your audience. Uh, but I was there 16 years ago um in this project. I didn't know at that time that this would be the biggest thing that I would see in my life. Right? I've been traveling all over the world. I am a geologist. I was born in Argentina. I went there and this thing was like big. But afterwards, right, when you have the capacity of comparing, it's when you realize what you have seen. And I I I realized that that was very very big. So I started following this asset. I've been following this for 16 years, right? And when the opportunity came in 2024, it's when Barry gave back the project to Golden Minerals, the previous operator. And when that happened, I said, "Okay, this is our chance." So I rewind I I check what happened. And actually Barrick took the project during COVID. Uh they were winding down everywhere in the in the lat in the Americas, mostly in Latin America. And in Argentina, they were stopping exploration. So they didn't do much at Elavar, but they gave back the project to Golden Minerals. And boom, I say, "Okay, this is the moment to show this to Frank." I was already working uh with the Fior group. I showed this to Frank. Frank instantly understood that it was this the opportunity to go. Uh it's very rare. It's a pure silver play you know and uh I know that there are many companies saying that there is pure silver somehow it's it's confusing so for us it's the true pure silver play because when you see the analytics like like the minology and and and the and the elements from the rocks there is no gold there is no copper there is no zinc and I mean there's zero of them and there's only silver and that is very abnormal in nature and Frank likes these kind of things that are very rare and he understood instantly the opportunity that we have there. When when we understood what was the price when we understood that there were over 100,000 mters of drilling uh probably 100 thousand 100 million sorry of investment uh 80 kilometers of roads the location the camp. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. person camp on site, 100 person camp on site, >> 100 people camp. So, so it was kind of a no-brainer to go with this plus the potential. And this is something else that sometimes people uh forget about things, right? You like a car because the car is beautiful, the car is expensive and this and that, but you never think about how long you can use that and how much functionality will give you. This is what how I evaluate projects. I try to find out what's the upside potential of things and not only the intrinsic value that things have in the moment of the purchase. The moment of the purchase was all these things that I'm mentioning, the camp, the infrastructure, the 50 million ounces of pure silver that we have. But on top of that, I was looking at this as the second largest volcanic complex in Argentina. meaning that there is a multiplicity of events creating one volcano on top of the other and this is multiplying many times the potential to find more deposits and there are not many places on earth where you can find that. So watching all that potential was one of the reasons as well to keep following this asset and finally we we grab it in uh October 2024. uh we are moving forward very quickly. We are following the the instructions the the the recipe as I say uh as as it has to be. I I hate to skip steps and I believe that that's one of the problems of this industry. Plenty of people believe that uh shortcutting steps it's going to make things easier or faster and actually that's the key or the essential thing to failure when you start shortcutting steps. We don't want to do that. We are very serious on this. We want to move this into production in the future. So there we go doing things by the book. And the land package that she bought I think it's 50 57,000 square hectares. Yeah. So for context, that's like a a square with 15 mile sides. It's very large. >> And you focused your attention on Elvar, right? This is where your 50 million ounces of silver exists. >> Uh 90% of which is in the indicated category. >> Yes. 90% it's indicated. So 45.3 million ounces are indicated at a very high grade. 482 g per ton. >> So put that in context. And we're just going to we're going to pull out a stone here. a stone or rock that you brought me because when you say 482 grams per ton average grade, right? And you look at comparable. Yeah, please. >> Yeah. So, so just to have in mind, uh our cutoff grade is 250 g >> grams per ton. >> Yeah. >> In most of the projects around the world, the cutoff grade, which is the grade that you use to say, okay, up to here, I will measure my resources, right? It's 150. >> Mhm. We are 100 grams above that and for us from there above is what we consider or from there below we don't consider that as as part of the resource but with these prices of silver some people is starting to think >> sure >> that you should lower your cutoff grates right there are project >> well I think that we need to be all in the industry we need to be cautious you know we need to wait we cannot be impulsive we need to wait until the price settles down and we find a new floor. When that's when >> the silver price >> the silver price the silver price when the price is is settled that's when we are going to understand what to do in those terms. But for this project you know we have 250 cut off gs per ton of silver cut off. We could go to 150 gs per ton cut off if we want and uh and even lower in the most mineralized areas. So it's very important to understand that this is a project that needs to keep growing and every piece of mineralization that we have of those 50 million ounces are in one place. It's not satellite. So for us drilling stepouts extending the deposit on both ends it's going to be very very fast and we will understand very quickly how big this thing could be. So adding ounces by stepping out adding ounces by rearranging the future mineral resource understanding better the metallurgy we are now doing metallurgical test work uh and that's part of all this uh program for 2026 right all those numbers are going to help us to put a new mineral resource estimate and that's going to be the beginning of what we believe it's going to be the the road to economic assessments, right? >> Okay. >> Even prefaceibility or economic assessment, preliminary economic assessment, but we are moving things towards there. So, we are doing a lot of uh stepouts >> and that's only on the resource. That's only 3% of the property from the 57,000 hectares. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's just a little piece little bit. It's summertime in Argentina right now or the end of >> summertime in the southern hemisphere. that you've been drilling, right? >> It's worth noting, yes, that 50 million ounces of silver is a historic resource from 2024. That's >> prior to you taking the helm of this asset. >> That's why your mission right now is increase that ounce count, right? You're putting the drill in the ground, >> doing exactly that. um you know results sort of speak for themselves and have been reflected in the share price and your ability over the last 12 months to consistently raise money at higher valuations but we're all this is pointing to is the updated resource estimate can we expect this by it's like end of year is that a fair expectation >> well to have look as I said we don't want to skip steps right >> so thinking of a mineral resource estimate update Right. We believe that it could be done by the beginnings of 2027. >> Okay. Got it. Yeah. >> Right. >> Yeah. >> The thing is that on top of that there are other things to consider which are good not bad. >> Right. >> Yeah. >> We have found another area that has silver sitting on top on surface. So we need to understand how we are going to merge that if we if we will be able to drill that enough to merge that into the current resource or not if that if there is going to be enough silver or not in those other areas. So all these things that are really good are actually making us rearrange the way that we are starting to look at the project. We had a recent heat of 44 meters with 0.57 g per ton of gold and 0.58% of copper. When you see Yeah, >> this is the >> that's the that's it. That's caramin. And when you think about the grades, >> those grades are very very similar to a porefree system. The important thing about this rock that you have in your hands is that there is no silver. So the geochemical signature, the DNA of that rock is different to the DNA of the other rock that contains silver, telling us that there might be two different systems, two different sources. And this is again not only opening the the the the upside potential of the project but also proving the theory of the multiplicity of events and the amount of potential that this property can have on finding multiple deposits. >> What does that tell you? Now I'm not a geologist but when you find two independent systems like these that you've shown me, this is from the Carmen area and this from the uh Jacquj. Am I close? Y right both in the Elabar project and you find two independent systems as you mentioned that have completely independent DNA so different origin story different age of course right this is a consequence of the multi volcano system is that it in [clears throat] >> that's that's the thing so >> okay >> when when you have this these plateaus in the high and right there are these regional fracttors that come from the Pacific ocean into the continent and those fractures will be driving magma up into surface all through the crust up to the surface. But there are places where the permeability of the crust is more than others and that permeability allows huge amounts of magmas and fluid to come up to surface. El Kavar is one of those rare places where you have this huge amount of permeability connecting the surface with that magma that it's below the earth. So this multiple events it's bringing metal up to surface in huge amounts. And there's something just to complicate a little bit more things that I tell people when you have a great like the one that we drill on a alltime record-breaking result of 18,467 grams per ton of silver. I'm talking about almost 18 kilograms of silver. When you have that amount of mineral and you start finding more and more and more rocks with that amount of mineral, it's telling you that the fluids have the capacity to transport a lot of metal, right? And you need to think that okay, what happen if that metal is not only silver, if it's gold, copper? Well, Carmen is the proof >> that there can be other things at a very very high grade. In Carmen, we drill around or almost five grams per ton of gold in some intercepts and above 8.5% copper in some intercepts. And that it's telling us that the fluids have a lot of carrying capacity to bring metals to surface. What we need to do is we need to be very aggressive on the exploration side. Now we have the lowhanging fruit which is the resource itself. We are drilling on both ends but we have all that open ground where we need to be very aggressive. We need to go out. We need to do the work. Identify targets drill those targets and try to expand oursel on on the footprint that we have in the property. This year we are going to run a lot of geoysics and we will be doing the metallurgy. We are going to cover 60 square kilometers of the land package just to understand what do we have in there. We are going to put >> to identify potential future targets. >> Potential future target. We are putting people to walk in places that there has never been anybody else before. >> Okay. >> Which is amazing. And and we have a top class team, worldclass team working with us. Some of the guys that we have they are coming from Newmont from Barrick from King Ross from different companies. Uh our chief geologist is a magnificent professional uh very highly skilled is part of the discovery team of Serenegro from Gold Corp in Patagonia. His work in Ecuador in Chile in different parts of the world even here in Canada. So we have a top class team and I think that that's the key behind this and you mentioned something about that Jay you mentioned about the fury group. So being in a group where you have that support that much technical knowledge that much financial knowledge behind building up a a very very solid team in Argentina that is highly skilled you know with a project like this in your hands. I think that it's a whole combination of things that it's giving us really good results. On top of that, if you start adding all the other things like jurisdiction, the price of metals at this moment, the the geopolitical situation that we are leaving. So the combination of the new government in Argentina, I mean that's it. [laughter] I love the conviction walking. Sincerely, I do. And as a shareholder, I I makes me excited, you know. So 60 square kilometers is the next uh like the next frontier where you're looking for where to put the drill bit next, right? >> Uh that's a big area. You are undergoing a pretty big drill program right now. [snorts] >> So my my question is like I know you have around 40 million in the treasury right now. >> Yes. >> Right. So, walk me through, you know, today it's it's mid-March, um Q1 of 2027, we anticipate an updated uh resource estimate. Um do you feel confident at this point you can afford that whole program from here to there or you anticipate >> with the with the $40 million that we raised, we can move forward up to the end of the year and end the year with money on the treasury. >> Okay? So there is no immediate need to rush for money at this moment. As you said, we've been raising money every time at double uh the price. The last was a B deal at 80 cents just a share. And uh that double the amount of money that we had in our treasury >> was a $23 million B deal. >> We had we had $20 million in the in the in the treasury. >> Yeah. >> And suddenly we had $43 million in treasury. doubling everything. So we had to restructure our exploration program. That's why I was smiling before and telling you that every time that we move forward, we need to restructure everything because we still jumping or or crushing into fantastic events that are getting us to restructure everything again for the best and the good of the project. Right? In this case, we double the money. We had to double everything. a double of the intensity of work for our crews and for our people. That that's been amazing because we we understand that the shareholders as as you are are very supportive and that people like you perfectly understand that this is not a business from today to tomorrow. That this is a long-term thing that we need a high quality long-term shareholders backing us up. So we have Frank Gustra, we have Ed Duardo Stein and Dardo Stein it's a it's a mining businessman a real estate businessman he managed a lot of finance businesses in Argentina very very uh large enterprise person and having the support of all these shareholders plus beautiful institutions from Europe from North America uh some local shareholders in Argentina so all this support it's it's fantastic and and Again, I'm putting all these things on the on the ground and it seems like a fantasy. But uh actually we we are convinced that that we have something very very powerful here, very good. Um once we start having results from these guys going to those places where nobody has been before, we will have to steer again on this beautiful thing that we are moving forward. We we are very very happy with what we have in our hands. >> No doubt. Okay. And I I appreciate the comments on time horizon. You know, we we preach that all day long here. Uh we have we actually have a education platform that is specifically designed to get new investors familiar with where the majority of money is made in this business. And if you look at the biggest wins from your partner Frank Gustra or the legends in the business like you know the late Lucas Lundine, Ross Bey, Bob Cordamine, the investors like Eric Sprat, the biggest wins of their careers always came after 5 to sevenyear durations. you know that's what it took and typically massive volatility between the beginning and the end of that right so revisiting the initial thesis the market's gotten volatile but has the story changed getting back to that that fundamental story >> and ensuring you still validated in what you're trying to build here right so >> yeah and I think that something else that you're mentioning which is very important to to touch is how you educate people right so Argentina might have been out of the radar for for many years. Now people is starting to understand about Argentina. Uh silver has been also a little bit under the radar for many years. Now people is starting to understand how important is the the industry use that silver has in the world. And uh we are starting to see all this and how people is getting more and more educated. And um I think that uh part of uh the support that we are getting is because we are also doing a lot of educational work. We are doing a lot of disruptive marketing in the industry which I haven't seen at least much of that before. Uh I like to do that. It's something that I really enjoy. We have a fantastic team of people working behind us. Uh Vanessa Bogart is our VP of investor relations. Uh very supportive. Um and all the team that is behind you know they they come with very creative ideas. I have some crazy ideas too you know that I like to bring every time and they help us to or help me to bring them to reality. So I think that educating people and showing showing to the different generational wide range of people that we have in the market what's the opportunity here. I think that's key right. >> Yeah. Yeah. And you know, a a core advantage to operating out of an office like Fior and a core reason that I'm a shareholder of pretty much every company in your portfolio is because you guys can share that brand capital. You're talking about various marketing initiatives. Well, you have 18 other CEOs that you can look to. What have you done? What's working? What are you doing? What's working? Where's the best return for my dollars? Obviously the same from a geology and engineering standpoint, company leadership standpoint, navigating capital markets. Public company CEOs have a way harder job than the guy like me. Like I have to build a valuable company, provide value to my clients. That's what I do. You have to do that. You have to build a valuable company and appease shareholders every single day, right? Which is like two job descriptions, both big ones, right? It's a lot, right? So sharing those resources is so vital. >> You've been here with a Robert Mloud. >> Yeah. uh with Sean Kungu with Colin JRI with plenty of the the people that it's coming from the Fury group being in the fur group it's it's a very very incredible I have to say you know when when you are there and see how everything moves in in in synchronism everything it's it's wellrounded and uh what the outcomes can can be from that you know of putting so much intelligence in in one place trying to push for the right results. Uh Argenta Silver was was one of those things. I identified this opportunity late August 2024 and uh in 60 days we were able to run all the due diligences to do the NI43101 to raise the capital to rename the the company to move the company to the TSXB to put everything to work to build a team in Argentina to build a team in Canada. 60 days took us to make that happen. And those kind of things can happen in very very few places in the world. I think that what Frank Gustro is building up with the Fury Group. It's just fantastic. Fantastic. >> Agreed. I have a question for you and it's about something that you said earlier. >> You hinted that most investors and even company CEOs misunderstand the meaning of a pure play silver company. >> Y >> So could you explain that to me? How would you define that and where's the misunderstanding? So plenty of companies will try to show uh that they have a a pure commodity whatever it is right >> okay >> but sometimes that pure commodity will come associated with other things uh for example silver it's a byproduct of many many uh mines right >> so today probably the biggest silver deposits in the world are copper per pureries, right? >> They will have a huge amount of silver in them at the very low grade but in very hu huge amount of volume, right? So when you see some silver companies calling themselves pure silver companies, uh you know it's it's okay. It's it's the main commodity of the company. But sometimes that silver in the rock it's mixed with other substances gold, copper, zinc, lead. And when you run the metallergy for those uh projects, you will have a metallergy that will have a poly metallic product. >> Mhm. The metallergy that we have it's historical. It's a fantastic metallurgy. uh we have seen from the previous operator a metallurgy that can produce a pure silver concentrate with no lead with no zinc with no gold with nothing. Um and we have already approached specialists around the world and some of them that work in different refineries and the answer from that has been spectacular to us. Right. watching a pure con pure silver concentrate. It's something also very rare. But for that you need this rarity on earth that it's a pure silver deposit. So the DNA it's only silver. We don't have anything else. I'm not saying that the other companies shouldn't call themselves a pure silver company. Just they will have other things in their mineralization. Yeah. >> Not necessarily just silver. That's why we are so rare because we we just have silver and and that's very strange nature you know >> and the reason that matters is because the majority of silver in the world comes as a byproduct of something else often copper and as a consequence those companies aren't as leveraged to the silver price and don't experience they can't respond to silver price because they're not primary silver producers. the small group of companies that are realize that that volatility to the upside that others would not as a byproduct. >> Yeah. Yeah, that's totally correct. And uh the other thing is that sometimes when you have this mix of elements, you have to play with the recoveries, right? And in our case, the historical recoveries of this deposit are around 93 to 96% on the concentrate on the historical concentrate. We need to see on the new methological test work what are going to be the results. We are very you know anxious to see that coming from there. But at the same time we understand that there is variability in the deposit and that we can play with that variability that we can blend things that we we can play with the different silver grades that we have. So this is fantastic. As I explained to somebody some time ago mineral deposits are not like a white wall. They are like a beautiful color paint where you have all these different things in the paint and you will have these reds here, these yellows there, you know, and that's that's a mineral deposit. You will have different concentration of things. It's not just one thing with just one grade. The grade of a resource is an average grade for the whole thing. But in this beautiful paint that we have, well, it's great because then you can take from one place or the other, start working them out and creating a product that it can be more attractive to one refinery or the other depending who you approach, right? >> I love that. You know, I was just reflecting on how nice it is that geology is cool again, right? It's been a long time walking as I'm sure you're well aware in our industry being the mining industry one of the most hated for the last 12 15 years right it was like political sentiment media sentiment vilified our sector and when politics and media hate you capital doesn't go anywhere near you of course not right that's a substantial headwind to invest into this seismic 180°ree sentiment shift that we've experienced as a result of governments all over the world waking up and realizing they don't own anything and that's a problem. And so now there's this scramble, right? The special projects office in Canada, the critical metals list in the United States, Plan Mexico and every country's got their thing now, right? To provide assistance, incentives, and fasttracking for the mineral sector. I just love it. It's uh it's like back to basics, back to hard assets, back to reality. Um, okay. I really want to drill in on what I and my audience can expect from you over the next 12 months. Right. You've got the cash in the bank to complete uh your your subsequent drilling on um both Jacqu J and Carmen in Elqvar. >> Uh we expect to increase the ounce counts on Jacquj right from that's correct. That's the goal right now. And we want to learn more about Carmen because this was a probably a bit of a surprising discovery but a new one. It was right. >> It was it was a surprise and actually we put a second drill hole there which hit again uh and that it's confirming that it's there. We need to understand more. We will be drilling more. So the same the same with the the stepouts. We drill 170 m stepout that was successful and 100 m to the other way. So we extended the deposit 270 m. >> Okay. which is a lot. It's It's a lot considering that the initial footprint of the deposit was 1,500 meters. So, right 20% increase. >> So, yeah, it's it's it's a long increase in the footprint. So, what to expect on the next 12 months? On the next 12 months, we will be completing a 45,000 meter drill program. We are going to complete a 60 square kilometer geoysical program covering all the area. We will be putting people to walk in different areas trying to find new targets which will be disclosed at the right time and we will be from those 45,000 mters we will be drilling step outs and exploration targets right we will also have the methological test going which has already started on different steps and we will have those results coming out at some point. So I think that the amount of information that we will see coming out from Elkar will be huge. It's important for the audience to understand uh how to put pieces together and it's on our side on how we communicate those those things and how we explain people how things are linked one to the other right and again this is there is a recipe in this industry and the recipe if you want to build a mind that the recipe is there we are following the recipe so we will be disclosing things as they are coming but in a in a in a in a timely and and tidy way, right? So people understand that we are not just jumping from here to there trying to find something. We are we are going step by step very systematic very methodological uh putting a lot a lot of great matter into this thing. So we are doing a very fine job here and we want to move very fast. During 2025 we were named or listed number 30 on the TSX Venture 50, right? And it's been only one year of life and we are already doing discoveries. So we are moving very fast. We are we are doing really good things. Uh but one step at at the time as we say in Argentina. >> Yeah. Okay. So 45,000 meters of drilling, we can expect lots of news flow on the heels of that validating some assumptions within >> Alqar. >> But key to understand that Alqar is only 3% of your land package. And so >> in addition to this, you've got teams surveying 60 square kilometers of property to identify where you might go next, right? Where you might allocate some capital to exploration um and learn more about the the bigger picture of your land package. >> Correct. Correct. Yeah. >> And all this points to Q1 um you know big milestone when we do a new resource estimate. >> Yeah. And again >> that's what we want to do you know but reality has been showing us every time that we need to rearrange our our course >> because of great things happening to us. >> So hopefully hopefully uh something great happen again and it's not Q1 2027 and we need to move before or after for a good reason. If not, that's where we are aiming. We are aiming to build something very very big. And something that has to be clear is that with Frank, when we put this together, the the idea from day one was not to build a company that is based only on Elkar, right? >> We are building here something that it's going to be a longlasting company focused on silver in Latin America. So, Elvar is not uh the only thing that we would like to have in our hands. We have been looking for other opportunities. We want to move forward with with other opportunities and hopefully we build a company that has different assets, some in production, some in exploration that we can generate cash flow for our shareholders and keep moving forward. at this moment what we have in our hands it's a kibbar laser focus on that but we don't discard at all other opportunities in Latin America >> got it okay so eyes on M&A >> a little bit all right it's been great thanks for coming in today it's always great chatting with you but it's it's much more fun here in the studio so thanks for your time congrats on an amazing year uh 30th place in venture 50 as a shareholder I thank you for your performance But honestly, thank you for your time. It's been great chatting with you today. >> Yeah, I really love to come here and I think Jay that you are doing something very important. You're a young person as I am. I think that we are trying to attract as well uh young uh investors into this industry which you told the truth. It's been heated by plenty of people and and situations in the past. So, I want to congratulate you for the job that you do on trying to bring as well younger generations into the industry. >> Appreciate it, man. My right.
This Silver Bull Market Is Just Getting Started
Summary
Transcript
When Barry gave back the project [music] to Golden Minerals, the previous operator, I said, "Okay, this is our chance. >> This is J. Martin." >> Well, it's great to have you in the studio, man. I'm excited to have this conversation. >> Me, too. I'm very excited about that. Uh, thank you for inviting me. >> Yeah, my pleasure. So, I want to unpack your business today. Uh, I'm a shareholder of your business. We're going to talk about this. There's many layers that I want to cover today and I felt like the smartest one to start with is the geopolitical thesis behind Argenta silver meaning that you're based in Argentina uh country that's seen seismic shifts in the last few years right after 80 years of lost productivity. So what's relevant today from a headland standpoint in Argentina? What do investors need to know and what should they be paying attention to on the ground especially in Salta where you are but country specific what what matters today? Well, I think that that's a very important point, Jay, because when you start thinking on the macro, right? Argentina has always been marginal to the global issues from world wars from the first world war, the second world war. Argentina has been always marginal providing or supplying the world with resources. >> Yeah. So being that far away in this moment where the world is completely chaotic, you know how many issues are around there and I believe I'm a true believer that there will be some disruption on the supply chains as it's happening now with the oil and that's why oil prices are going up. I believe that we will see major disruptions in the future for different commodities and that's going to affect the metals when I think that Argentina has a geopolitical position that it's very particular being far away from all those issues and being able to provide the world with resources in the future particularly the Salta province where we are located Argentina first of all it's a it's a multi-jurisdictional country, every province, it's a jurisdiction per se. So, Salta, it's a very very good jurisdiction. It's very safe to work there. Uh, it's the only province that still have a judicial court of mining. That means that every issue that it's in between the administration and the owners of projects, it's resolved by judge and judge are independent of whoever government it's on turn. So that gives an extra layer of protection on uh the legal framework of the province. So very safe jurisdiction. It's a place where I recommend people just to go and cruise with their children in the province, travel around. Beautiful landscapes, jungle and and and the mountains. So tourism it's very big industry there and that speaks a lot about how safety or how safe is the the jurisdiction as it is. Right. So we are very well located. Um the project itself it's in a fantastic position. Uh we have a railroad. We have a road that it's all year open. We have a gas pipeline coming to us. We have a major power line coming to us. That power line it's connected to the national grid in Argentina and it's connected to two solar farms that are in there. So, uh, from big to small, you can see that it's getting better and better and better. >> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I love that. And, you know, my wife went to school in Buenos, and she hasn't got me down there yet, but it's pretty high in the list actually for us. And, you know, Argentina is a country that's received a lot of support from the American president, right? Uh, his recent election and there was a financing package last year. I think a lot of people misunderstood that, right? What was the why behind that uh action? and and to me it's like Argentina is one of the most minerally endowed countries on the planet, right? And leveraged that very effectively until around the 1930s and that's when trouble began and persisted for around 80 years. But prior to that, one of the wealthiest countries in the world because they leveraged that natural resource wealth very effectively with a massive coastline. That to me was always the reason that the Americans had such a vested interest in Argentina because as we continue to fracture the geopolitical chessboard, countries aren't sharing the way they used to. Those alliances are way more important today than they ever have been, at least in my lifetime. And Argentina is like top of the list. It's in the Americas. It's got to be an ally of the United States. So, there's a lot of leverage there. and this new government uh it's creating us all these new alliances in between uh Europe, in between Asia, between North America. So he's not kicking anybody out of the game. He's very inclusive. You know, he might have preferences for one or the other, but he's not closing doors drastically. And that's allowing the country to start opening different styles of businesses with different customers around the globe. And uh it's it's good to have a government like this which already had the confirmation of the support of people on the midterm elections uh from from last year. So we are starting to see how the government has been empowering itself or or or getting stronger and stronger. how the image of this government has been growing more and more and more. Uh one of the key elements I think that happened in the country is that uh inflation the ramping inflation was stop. >> Yeah. >> Not to zero but it was it was kind of we pushed the brake on that >> been very muted. >> Yeah. It was a ramping inflation situation where you know you could see prices written in in in pencil in some places. you know some people couldn't give you a list of prices because the day after those prices would be different because of inflation. So having this situation of stopping or breaking down on the inflation uh opening the doors to the world bringing new industries um bringing all these legal framework that it's supporting the country to to move forward in big time. I'm talking about the rigi. So the rig it's a it's a legal framework for large investments in Argentina. There is another one that was created in the '90s. Uh we are very happy that the subsidiary in Argentina has applied to that one in the '90s. So we have kind of a similar regime applied to our company in Argentina from the the previous law. But this law that MLE has created, it's a large investment incentive program which helps companies to thrive in Argentina and gives them a lot of uh stability, fiscal stability, legal stability. Uh taxes are much lower than in other jurisdictions and uh we are watching investments of for example $18 billion from BHP and Lundin in Argentina. um $7 billion from Riotinto in lithium, uh billionaire investments in the agro businesses, billionaire investments in the real estate industries. Uh there's going to be built a data center which is going to cost billions of dollars >> in Argentina. So all these coming into the country is very powerful and obviously you know one thing is dragging the other and and mining it's one of the pillars of this government >> to rebuild the economy of the country. >> I love that and thank you for the context. Now you know you and your your original capital partner being the Fury group led by Frank Gustra and Gourd Keep >> and the whole engine behind that organization now I think around 100 people in the office half of them are mining engineers you know they've birthe some of the most successful companies in the resource sector ever like Wheaton uh Endeavor Mining and more recently the Fior portfolio of companies argenta being one that was one of the top performers last year but obviously you two were aligned on what you saw in the Salta province. And it struck me as very textbook from a Frank Gustra standpoint and that he found an asset that somebody else had already invested a couple hundred million into and then ran into financial trouble and had to step back, right? And that's the opportunity that I've seen him capitalize on many times. Is that a fair summation of how this original transaction came together? I mean, it was a $3.5 million transaction for an asset that had $und00 million of drilling put into it. Something like this. >> Yeah. Yeah. That's that's the story. So, look, it's the story. I think that it goes back a little bit more. And this is something that I I haven't made that much public. So, probably you you will make this public to your audience. Uh, but I was there 16 years ago um in this project. I didn't know at that time that this would be the biggest thing that I would see in my life. Right? I've been traveling all over the world. I am a geologist. I was born in Argentina. I went there and this thing was like big. But afterwards, right, when you have the capacity of comparing, it's when you realize what you have seen. And I I I realized that that was very very big. So I started following this asset. I've been following this for 16 years, right? And when the opportunity came in 2024, it's when Barry gave back the project to Golden Minerals, the previous operator. And when that happened, I said, "Okay, this is our chance." So I rewind I I check what happened. And actually Barrick took the project during COVID. Uh they were winding down everywhere in the in the lat in the Americas, mostly in Latin America. And in Argentina, they were stopping exploration. So they didn't do much at Elavar, but they gave back the project to Golden Minerals. And boom, I say, "Okay, this is the moment to show this to Frank." I was already working uh with the Fior group. I showed this to Frank. Frank instantly understood that it was this the opportunity to go. Uh it's very rare. It's a pure silver play you know and uh I know that there are many companies saying that there is pure silver somehow it's it's confusing so for us it's the true pure silver play because when you see the analytics like like the minology and and and the and the elements from the rocks there is no gold there is no copper there is no zinc and I mean there's zero of them and there's only silver and that is very abnormal in nature and Frank likes these kind of things that are very rare and he understood instantly the opportunity that we have there. When when we understood what was the price when we understood that there were over 100,000 mters of drilling uh probably 100 thousand 100 million sorry of investment uh 80 kilometers of roads the location the camp. >> Mhm. >> Yeah. person camp on site, 100 person camp on site, >> 100 people camp. So, so it was kind of a no-brainer to go with this plus the potential. And this is something else that sometimes people uh forget about things, right? You like a car because the car is beautiful, the car is expensive and this and that, but you never think about how long you can use that and how much functionality will give you. This is what how I evaluate projects. I try to find out what's the upside potential of things and not only the intrinsic value that things have in the moment of the purchase. The moment of the purchase was all these things that I'm mentioning, the camp, the infrastructure, the 50 million ounces of pure silver that we have. But on top of that, I was looking at this as the second largest volcanic complex in Argentina. meaning that there is a multiplicity of events creating one volcano on top of the other and this is multiplying many times the potential to find more deposits and there are not many places on earth where you can find that. So watching all that potential was one of the reasons as well to keep following this asset and finally we we grab it in uh October 2024. uh we are moving forward very quickly. We are following the the instructions the the the recipe as I say uh as as it has to be. I I hate to skip steps and I believe that that's one of the problems of this industry. Plenty of people believe that uh shortcutting steps it's going to make things easier or faster and actually that's the key or the essential thing to failure when you start shortcutting steps. We don't want to do that. We are very serious on this. We want to move this into production in the future. So there we go doing things by the book. And the land package that she bought I think it's 50 57,000 square hectares. Yeah. So for context, that's like a a square with 15 mile sides. It's very large. >> And you focused your attention on Elvar, right? This is where your 50 million ounces of silver exists. >> Uh 90% of which is in the indicated category. >> Yes. 90% it's indicated. So 45.3 million ounces are indicated at a very high grade. 482 g per ton. >> So put that in context. And we're just going to we're going to pull out a stone here. a stone or rock that you brought me because when you say 482 grams per ton average grade, right? And you look at comparable. Yeah, please. >> Yeah. So, so just to have in mind, uh our cutoff grade is 250 g >> grams per ton. >> Yeah. >> In most of the projects around the world, the cutoff grade, which is the grade that you use to say, okay, up to here, I will measure my resources, right? It's 150. >> Mhm. We are 100 grams above that and for us from there above is what we consider or from there below we don't consider that as as part of the resource but with these prices of silver some people is starting to think >> sure >> that you should lower your cutoff grates right there are project >> well I think that we need to be all in the industry we need to be cautious you know we need to wait we cannot be impulsive we need to wait until the price settles down and we find a new floor. When that's when >> the silver price >> the silver price the silver price when the price is is settled that's when we are going to understand what to do in those terms. But for this project you know we have 250 cut off gs per ton of silver cut off. We could go to 150 gs per ton cut off if we want and uh and even lower in the most mineralized areas. So it's very important to understand that this is a project that needs to keep growing and every piece of mineralization that we have of those 50 million ounces are in one place. It's not satellite. So for us drilling stepouts extending the deposit on both ends it's going to be very very fast and we will understand very quickly how big this thing could be. So adding ounces by stepping out adding ounces by rearranging the future mineral resource understanding better the metallurgy we are now doing metallurgical test work uh and that's part of all this uh program for 2026 right all those numbers are going to help us to put a new mineral resource estimate and that's going to be the beginning of what we believe it's going to be the the road to economic assessments, right? >> Okay. >> Even prefaceibility or economic assessment, preliminary economic assessment, but we are moving things towards there. So, we are doing a lot of uh stepouts >> and that's only on the resource. That's only 3% of the property from the 57,000 hectares. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's just a little piece little bit. It's summertime in Argentina right now or the end of >> summertime in the southern hemisphere. that you've been drilling, right? >> It's worth noting, yes, that 50 million ounces of silver is a historic resource from 2024. That's >> prior to you taking the helm of this asset. >> That's why your mission right now is increase that ounce count, right? You're putting the drill in the ground, >> doing exactly that. um you know results sort of speak for themselves and have been reflected in the share price and your ability over the last 12 months to consistently raise money at higher valuations but we're all this is pointing to is the updated resource estimate can we expect this by it's like end of year is that a fair expectation >> well to have look as I said we don't want to skip steps right >> so thinking of a mineral resource estimate update Right. We believe that it could be done by the beginnings of 2027. >> Okay. Got it. Yeah. >> Right. >> Yeah. >> The thing is that on top of that there are other things to consider which are good not bad. >> Right. >> Yeah. >> We have found another area that has silver sitting on top on surface. So we need to understand how we are going to merge that if we if we will be able to drill that enough to merge that into the current resource or not if that if there is going to be enough silver or not in those other areas. So all these things that are really good are actually making us rearrange the way that we are starting to look at the project. We had a recent heat of 44 meters with 0.57 g per ton of gold and 0.58% of copper. When you see Yeah, >> this is the >> that's the that's it. That's caramin. And when you think about the grades, >> those grades are very very similar to a porefree system. The important thing about this rock that you have in your hands is that there is no silver. So the geochemical signature, the DNA of that rock is different to the DNA of the other rock that contains silver, telling us that there might be two different systems, two different sources. And this is again not only opening the the the the upside potential of the project but also proving the theory of the multiplicity of events and the amount of potential that this property can have on finding multiple deposits. >> What does that tell you? Now I'm not a geologist but when you find two independent systems like these that you've shown me, this is from the Carmen area and this from the uh Jacquj. Am I close? Y right both in the Elabar project and you find two independent systems as you mentioned that have completely independent DNA so different origin story different age of course right this is a consequence of the multi volcano system is that it in [clears throat] >> that's that's the thing so >> okay >> when when you have this these plateaus in the high and right there are these regional fracttors that come from the Pacific ocean into the continent and those fractures will be driving magma up into surface all through the crust up to the surface. But there are places where the permeability of the crust is more than others and that permeability allows huge amounts of magmas and fluid to come up to surface. El Kavar is one of those rare places where you have this huge amount of permeability connecting the surface with that magma that it's below the earth. So this multiple events it's bringing metal up to surface in huge amounts. And there's something just to complicate a little bit more things that I tell people when you have a great like the one that we drill on a alltime record-breaking result of 18,467 grams per ton of silver. I'm talking about almost 18 kilograms of silver. When you have that amount of mineral and you start finding more and more and more rocks with that amount of mineral, it's telling you that the fluids have the capacity to transport a lot of metal, right? And you need to think that okay, what happen if that metal is not only silver, if it's gold, copper? Well, Carmen is the proof >> that there can be other things at a very very high grade. In Carmen, we drill around or almost five grams per ton of gold in some intercepts and above 8.5% copper in some intercepts. And that it's telling us that the fluids have a lot of carrying capacity to bring metals to surface. What we need to do is we need to be very aggressive on the exploration side. Now we have the lowhanging fruit which is the resource itself. We are drilling on both ends but we have all that open ground where we need to be very aggressive. We need to go out. We need to do the work. Identify targets drill those targets and try to expand oursel on on the footprint that we have in the property. This year we are going to run a lot of geoysics and we will be doing the metallurgy. We are going to cover 60 square kilometers of the land package just to understand what do we have in there. We are going to put >> to identify potential future targets. >> Potential future target. We are putting people to walk in places that there has never been anybody else before. >> Okay. >> Which is amazing. And and we have a top class team, worldclass team working with us. Some of the guys that we have they are coming from Newmont from Barrick from King Ross from different companies. Uh our chief geologist is a magnificent professional uh very highly skilled is part of the discovery team of Serenegro from Gold Corp in Patagonia. His work in Ecuador in Chile in different parts of the world even here in Canada. So we have a top class team and I think that that's the key behind this and you mentioned something about that Jay you mentioned about the fury group. So being in a group where you have that support that much technical knowledge that much financial knowledge behind building up a a very very solid team in Argentina that is highly skilled you know with a project like this in your hands. I think that it's a whole combination of things that it's giving us really good results. On top of that, if you start adding all the other things like jurisdiction, the price of metals at this moment, the the geopolitical situation that we are leaving. So the combination of the new government in Argentina, I mean that's it. [laughter] I love the conviction walking. Sincerely, I do. And as a shareholder, I I makes me excited, you know. So 60 square kilometers is the next uh like the next frontier where you're looking for where to put the drill bit next, right? >> Uh that's a big area. You are undergoing a pretty big drill program right now. [snorts] >> So my my question is like I know you have around 40 million in the treasury right now. >> Yes. >> Right. So, walk me through, you know, today it's it's mid-March, um Q1 of 2027, we anticipate an updated uh resource estimate. Um do you feel confident at this point you can afford that whole program from here to there or you anticipate >> with the with the $40 million that we raised, we can move forward up to the end of the year and end the year with money on the treasury. >> Okay? So there is no immediate need to rush for money at this moment. As you said, we've been raising money every time at double uh the price. The last was a B deal at 80 cents just a share. And uh that double the amount of money that we had in our treasury >> was a $23 million B deal. >> We had we had $20 million in the in the in the treasury. >> Yeah. >> And suddenly we had $43 million in treasury. doubling everything. So we had to restructure our exploration program. That's why I was smiling before and telling you that every time that we move forward, we need to restructure everything because we still jumping or or crushing into fantastic events that are getting us to restructure everything again for the best and the good of the project. Right? In this case, we double the money. We had to double everything. a double of the intensity of work for our crews and for our people. That that's been amazing because we we understand that the shareholders as as you are are very supportive and that people like you perfectly understand that this is not a business from today to tomorrow. That this is a long-term thing that we need a high quality long-term shareholders backing us up. So we have Frank Gustra, we have Ed Duardo Stein and Dardo Stein it's a it's a mining businessman a real estate businessman he managed a lot of finance businesses in Argentina very very uh large enterprise person and having the support of all these shareholders plus beautiful institutions from Europe from North America uh some local shareholders in Argentina so all this support it's it's fantastic and and Again, I'm putting all these things on the on the ground and it seems like a fantasy. But uh actually we we are convinced that that we have something very very powerful here, very good. Um once we start having results from these guys going to those places where nobody has been before, we will have to steer again on this beautiful thing that we are moving forward. We we are very very happy with what we have in our hands. >> No doubt. Okay. And I I appreciate the comments on time horizon. You know, we we preach that all day long here. Uh we have we actually have a education platform that is specifically designed to get new investors familiar with where the majority of money is made in this business. And if you look at the biggest wins from your partner Frank Gustra or the legends in the business like you know the late Lucas Lundine, Ross Bey, Bob Cordamine, the investors like Eric Sprat, the biggest wins of their careers always came after 5 to sevenyear durations. you know that's what it took and typically massive volatility between the beginning and the end of that right so revisiting the initial thesis the market's gotten volatile but has the story changed getting back to that that fundamental story >> and ensuring you still validated in what you're trying to build here right so >> yeah and I think that something else that you're mentioning which is very important to to touch is how you educate people right so Argentina might have been out of the radar for for many years. Now people is starting to understand about Argentina. Uh silver has been also a little bit under the radar for many years. Now people is starting to understand how important is the the industry use that silver has in the world. And uh we are starting to see all this and how people is getting more and more educated. And um I think that uh part of uh the support that we are getting is because we are also doing a lot of educational work. We are doing a lot of disruptive marketing in the industry which I haven't seen at least much of that before. Uh I like to do that. It's something that I really enjoy. We have a fantastic team of people working behind us. Uh Vanessa Bogart is our VP of investor relations. Uh very supportive. Um and all the team that is behind you know they they come with very creative ideas. I have some crazy ideas too you know that I like to bring every time and they help us to or help me to bring them to reality. So I think that educating people and showing showing to the different generational wide range of people that we have in the market what's the opportunity here. I think that's key right. >> Yeah. Yeah. And you know, a a core advantage to operating out of an office like Fior and a core reason that I'm a shareholder of pretty much every company in your portfolio is because you guys can share that brand capital. You're talking about various marketing initiatives. Well, you have 18 other CEOs that you can look to. What have you done? What's working? What are you doing? What's working? Where's the best return for my dollars? Obviously the same from a geology and engineering standpoint, company leadership standpoint, navigating capital markets. Public company CEOs have a way harder job than the guy like me. Like I have to build a valuable company, provide value to my clients. That's what I do. You have to do that. You have to build a valuable company and appease shareholders every single day, right? Which is like two job descriptions, both big ones, right? It's a lot, right? So sharing those resources is so vital. >> You've been here with a Robert Mloud. >> Yeah. uh with Sean Kungu with Colin JRI with plenty of the the people that it's coming from the Fury group being in the fur group it's it's a very very incredible I have to say you know when when you are there and see how everything moves in in in synchronism everything it's it's wellrounded and uh what the outcomes can can be from that you know of putting so much intelligence in in one place trying to push for the right results. Uh Argenta Silver was was one of those things. I identified this opportunity late August 2024 and uh in 60 days we were able to run all the due diligences to do the NI43101 to raise the capital to rename the the company to move the company to the TSXB to put everything to work to build a team in Argentina to build a team in Canada. 60 days took us to make that happen. And those kind of things can happen in very very few places in the world. I think that what Frank Gustro is building up with the Fury Group. It's just fantastic. Fantastic. >> Agreed. I have a question for you and it's about something that you said earlier. >> You hinted that most investors and even company CEOs misunderstand the meaning of a pure play silver company. >> Y >> So could you explain that to me? How would you define that and where's the misunderstanding? So plenty of companies will try to show uh that they have a a pure commodity whatever it is right >> okay >> but sometimes that pure commodity will come associated with other things uh for example silver it's a byproduct of many many uh mines right >> so today probably the biggest silver deposits in the world are copper per pureries, right? >> They will have a huge amount of silver in them at the very low grade but in very hu huge amount of volume, right? So when you see some silver companies calling themselves pure silver companies, uh you know it's it's okay. It's it's the main commodity of the company. But sometimes that silver in the rock it's mixed with other substances gold, copper, zinc, lead. And when you run the metallergy for those uh projects, you will have a metallergy that will have a poly metallic product. >> Mhm. The metallergy that we have it's historical. It's a fantastic metallurgy. uh we have seen from the previous operator a metallurgy that can produce a pure silver concentrate with no lead with no zinc with no gold with nothing. Um and we have already approached specialists around the world and some of them that work in different refineries and the answer from that has been spectacular to us. Right. watching a pure con pure silver concentrate. It's something also very rare. But for that you need this rarity on earth that it's a pure silver deposit. So the DNA it's only silver. We don't have anything else. I'm not saying that the other companies shouldn't call themselves a pure silver company. Just they will have other things in their mineralization. Yeah. >> Not necessarily just silver. That's why we are so rare because we we just have silver and and that's very strange nature you know >> and the reason that matters is because the majority of silver in the world comes as a byproduct of something else often copper and as a consequence those companies aren't as leveraged to the silver price and don't experience they can't respond to silver price because they're not primary silver producers. the small group of companies that are realize that that volatility to the upside that others would not as a byproduct. >> Yeah. Yeah, that's totally correct. And uh the other thing is that sometimes when you have this mix of elements, you have to play with the recoveries, right? And in our case, the historical recoveries of this deposit are around 93 to 96% on the concentrate on the historical concentrate. We need to see on the new methological test work what are going to be the results. We are very you know anxious to see that coming from there. But at the same time we understand that there is variability in the deposit and that we can play with that variability that we can blend things that we we can play with the different silver grades that we have. So this is fantastic. As I explained to somebody some time ago mineral deposits are not like a white wall. They are like a beautiful color paint where you have all these different things in the paint and you will have these reds here, these yellows there, you know, and that's that's a mineral deposit. You will have different concentration of things. It's not just one thing with just one grade. The grade of a resource is an average grade for the whole thing. But in this beautiful paint that we have, well, it's great because then you can take from one place or the other, start working them out and creating a product that it can be more attractive to one refinery or the other depending who you approach, right? >> I love that. You know, I was just reflecting on how nice it is that geology is cool again, right? It's been a long time walking as I'm sure you're well aware in our industry being the mining industry one of the most hated for the last 12 15 years right it was like political sentiment media sentiment vilified our sector and when politics and media hate you capital doesn't go anywhere near you of course not right that's a substantial headwind to invest into this seismic 180°ree sentiment shift that we've experienced as a result of governments all over the world waking up and realizing they don't own anything and that's a problem. And so now there's this scramble, right? The special projects office in Canada, the critical metals list in the United States, Plan Mexico and every country's got their thing now, right? To provide assistance, incentives, and fasttracking for the mineral sector. I just love it. It's uh it's like back to basics, back to hard assets, back to reality. Um, okay. I really want to drill in on what I and my audience can expect from you over the next 12 months. Right. You've got the cash in the bank to complete uh your your subsequent drilling on um both Jacqu J and Carmen in Elqvar. >> Uh we expect to increase the ounce counts on Jacquj right from that's correct. That's the goal right now. And we want to learn more about Carmen because this was a probably a bit of a surprising discovery but a new one. It was right. >> It was it was a surprise and actually we put a second drill hole there which hit again uh and that it's confirming that it's there. We need to understand more. We will be drilling more. So the same the same with the the stepouts. We drill 170 m stepout that was successful and 100 m to the other way. So we extended the deposit 270 m. >> Okay. which is a lot. It's It's a lot considering that the initial footprint of the deposit was 1,500 meters. So, right 20% increase. >> So, yeah, it's it's it's a long increase in the footprint. So, what to expect on the next 12 months? On the next 12 months, we will be completing a 45,000 meter drill program. We are going to complete a 60 square kilometer geoysical program covering all the area. We will be putting people to walk in different areas trying to find new targets which will be disclosed at the right time and we will be from those 45,000 mters we will be drilling step outs and exploration targets right we will also have the methological test going which has already started on different steps and we will have those results coming out at some point. So I think that the amount of information that we will see coming out from Elkar will be huge. It's important for the audience to understand uh how to put pieces together and it's on our side on how we communicate those those things and how we explain people how things are linked one to the other right and again this is there is a recipe in this industry and the recipe if you want to build a mind that the recipe is there we are following the recipe so we will be disclosing things as they are coming but in a in a in a in a timely and and tidy way, right? So people understand that we are not just jumping from here to there trying to find something. We are we are going step by step very systematic very methodological uh putting a lot a lot of great matter into this thing. So we are doing a very fine job here and we want to move very fast. During 2025 we were named or listed number 30 on the TSX Venture 50, right? And it's been only one year of life and we are already doing discoveries. So we are moving very fast. We are we are doing really good things. Uh but one step at at the time as we say in Argentina. >> Yeah. Okay. So 45,000 meters of drilling, we can expect lots of news flow on the heels of that validating some assumptions within >> Alqar. >> But key to understand that Alqar is only 3% of your land package. And so >> in addition to this, you've got teams surveying 60 square kilometers of property to identify where you might go next, right? Where you might allocate some capital to exploration um and learn more about the the bigger picture of your land package. >> Correct. Correct. Yeah. >> And all this points to Q1 um you know big milestone when we do a new resource estimate. >> Yeah. And again >> that's what we want to do you know but reality has been showing us every time that we need to rearrange our our course >> because of great things happening to us. >> So hopefully hopefully uh something great happen again and it's not Q1 2027 and we need to move before or after for a good reason. If not, that's where we are aiming. We are aiming to build something very very big. And something that has to be clear is that with Frank, when we put this together, the the idea from day one was not to build a company that is based only on Elkar, right? >> We are building here something that it's going to be a longlasting company focused on silver in Latin America. So, Elvar is not uh the only thing that we would like to have in our hands. We have been looking for other opportunities. We want to move forward with with other opportunities and hopefully we build a company that has different assets, some in production, some in exploration that we can generate cash flow for our shareholders and keep moving forward. at this moment what we have in our hands it's a kibbar laser focus on that but we don't discard at all other opportunities in Latin America >> got it okay so eyes on M&A >> a little bit all right it's been great thanks for coming in today it's always great chatting with you but it's it's much more fun here in the studio so thanks for your time congrats on an amazing year uh 30th place in venture 50 as a shareholder I thank you for your performance But honestly, thank you for your time. It's been great chatting with you today. >> Yeah, I really love to come here and I think Jay that you are doing something very important. You're a young person as I am. I think that we are trying to attract as well uh young uh investors into this industry which you told the truth. It's been heated by plenty of people and and situations in the past. So, I want to congratulate you for the job that you do on trying to bring as well younger generations into the industry. >> Appreciate it, man. My right.