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⚡SILVER Investor⚡- Outlook for Silver Price & THIS Company are Incredible! · SILVER / GOLD / $UFD Meme Coin Investing & Global Economics

0:03
What is happening and what might we expect in the silver markets
0:07
in the coming years? Today, we're joined by Jim
0:10
McDonald. He's the CEO of Kootenai Silver.
0:14
That's the first question I want to ask him, but he's also going
0:18
to introduce us to his company and talk about some exciting
0:22
developments at Kootenai. Jim, welcome to Ron's Basement.
0:26
Yeah, great to be in Ron's basement, Ron.
0:29
Yeah, well, my viewers and the the people joining us today
0:32
absolutely love silver. And I know that you're building
0:36
Kootenai into quite a large silver development stage,
0:41
exploration stage company, but you've got a lot of experience
0:45
in the precious metal sector over the years.
0:47
I imagine you follow the silver price closely.
0:50
I want to start by asking you, what do you make of what's
0:53
happening right now in the silver market?
0:56
Well, great. This is a classic breakout into
0:59
the next leg of a silver bull market that we believe is going
1:02
to be a multi year mark market silver run and and it is it is
1:11
following the same pattern as we've seen in the past.
1:14
I've been in this business since 19, in the junior side of the
1:18
business since 1988 and in the mining since 83.
1:22
So we've seen a number of these cycles and this is very typical.
1:25
Gold takes off 1st and gold broke out decisively over a year
1:29
ago. Now silver had its first break
1:32
approximately a year ago and actually in yeah, about a year
1:35
ago off of the low 20s into the low 30s.
1:38
And then in the fall a brief run up to 35 and now it's broken
1:41
that hit 37. So it is touching that critical
1:44
37 and change mark and this is the next leg up where it'll we
1:49
believe it'll go through 40 bucks there.
1:51
Once it's through 40, it's going to test the old highs of about
1:54
50. Keep going, Jim.
1:57
I like what you're saying. And, and, and and I've, I've
2:01
made a prediction of $60.00 silver by April 1st of next
2:04
year. So I think, I think we're in the
2:06
same camp. You know, it was interesting
2:09
before we came on, I looked back and you know if you and I had
2:13
been meeting two years ago today, the silver price would be
2:17
at about $22.00 per oz. You know, we've gone up over 50%
2:22
here in just the last two years. And you know, a lot of the input
2:26
cost into the silver mining companies like oil.
2:29
I looked at oil, crude oil is about the same as where it is.
2:32
So I would imagine that the, there aren't a lot of big silver
2:36
mining companies right now, but the ones that are are making
2:40
some pretty significant and profits.
2:42
And you would think that that money would start to flow into
2:46
the the, the junior sector on the silver side as well the the
2:49
developers and the explorers. Yeah, that that happens
2:52
definitely. There's huge positive cash flows
2:55
going on with the silver producers at the moment.
2:58
And so then they're they're going to have to deploy that
3:00
money that the first of it'll go into any upgrades that they need
3:04
or expansions that they have with their own.
3:06
But then after that, it's going to be going after acquisitions,
3:10
you're going to need to replace the reserves.
3:13
And when you're a silver producer, that's not that hard
3:15
to do because silver is predominantly a byproduct of
3:17
other metals and there's very few pure silver deposits out
3:22
there, in fact. Yeah, yeah, it'll be, it'll be
3:25
interesting. And, and I've heard some people
3:27
say that, you know, over the last several decades, while the
3:30
silver price had been suppressed, there wasn't a lot
3:34
of money going into exploration for silver.
3:37
So that when these companies do need to find new deposits,
3:41
companies like yours could be very well positioned to
3:44
capitalize on that situation. Yeah, well, that's, that's
3:48
definitely true that when when the profits get squeezed in the
3:52
mining industry, the first budget to get cut is the
3:55
expiration budget always and then preserve your capital for
3:58
the operating mine, which is a logical thing to do.
4:01
And however, because of the mining exploration discovery
4:06
mining cycle it, it's not the the smartest thing to do if you
4:10
can avoid it because it's a it's a long time frame from a
4:13
discovery to production. And so you really need to get a
4:16
pipeline going early. You need to have a discovery to
4:20
find a resource, prove it to be economic finance permit, build
4:27
permit, Finance Bill and probably that order.
4:29
So it it takes a long time and what happens is the expiration
4:34
budgets collapse and you've got a big time gap now.
4:38
And now when you've got a lot of cash flow happening, you've got
4:41
a lot of catch up and you can't get that time back.
4:45
So now you're starting to see a squeeze in the middle of supply.
4:49
And that's exactly what we see in the silver market today.
4:53
Yeah, yeah, there. There just aren't a lot of
4:55
companies out there with giant silver resources in the ground
5:00
who've moved them kind of through the exploration phase
5:03
and into the development phase. And yeah, it could be.
5:06
I love that word. I think everybody in the silver
5:08
silver world loves that word squeeze.
5:11
But there really is a squeeze in terms of supply of silver.
5:14
I think you and I could talk probably for the next two hours
5:17
about the fundamentals behind the silver market.
5:19
I mean, it's just very, very attractive situation, I believe
5:26
from from an investment perspective.
5:28
But you've positioned Kootenay to kind of capitalize on this
5:32
situation. Why don't you share with our
5:35
viewer just at first maybe a brief overview of the company.
5:39
I believe you're one of the founders and what got you up to
5:42
today? And then I want to talk about
5:44
some exciting developments at Kootenay as well.
5:47
Yeah, So Curtney Silver is a classic explorer.
5:51
We're in the business of discovering silver deposits and
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that's why we're in Mexico, Mexico being the biggest silver
5:56
producing region in the world as well.
5:58
My introduction to Mexico goes back 25 years ago.
6:02
We bought an out of the money gold deposit back then in the
6:05
year 2000 when gold was 285 and it.
6:11
Yeah, that's a different story in itself.
6:13
But we've heard long and short, we purchased it for $12 million,
6:18
had the title transferred us for a down payment of 50 grand.
6:22
And then we brought in, we had a shell company called National
6:26
Goldman. We brought in John McCluskey to
6:28
help us finance that with his junior, him and Chester Miller
6:33
with Alamos Minerals. This became Alamos Gold, which
6:36
is a huge success today. I haven't been involved in that
6:40
company since 2012, but we that that was my introduction to
6:45
Mexico and the potential there is incredible opportunities and
6:50
our new to Columba Discovery is exactly one of those so.
6:55
I want to, I want to emphasize you have a track record of
6:58
success in Mexico and then I wanted to ask you with that
7:02
success that you had with the with the gold mining company, do
7:05
you see similarities with what you're you're experiencing now
7:08
with Kutney? Well, yeah.
7:10
So with Kutney, we've got now 4 discoveries.
7:15
Colombo is our 4th. We just released the first ever
7:18
maiden resource on that discovery we made, We made the
7:21
discovery over 4 years ago now. And that maiden resource is
7:25
54,000,000 ounces of silver in the ground in 3rd category at a
7:29
really good grade. And it's our 4th deposit.
7:32
The the other three deposits already contained in a measured
7:36
and indicated category 214 million ounces of silver
7:40
equivalent with another 55 million in the inferred
7:43
category. And so we we've got an awful lot
7:46
of silver ounces in the gold which gives us tremendous
7:49
leverage. And then more more importantly,
7:52
this new Columba discovery is of a grade with widths that are
7:56
such that it could probably work at any kind of silver price.
7:59
So this is a great discovery and that and the upside there on is
8:03
is tremendous. We think that we're in a in a
8:06
new vein district in fact and 54,000,000 oz start, all the
8:10
zones are wide open. We see this thing getting bigger
8:13
and bigger pretty quickly and the potential for the classic
8:18
100 million oz everyone's looking for, or maybe even
8:21
multiple of that. Wow, wow.
8:24
So, so you have a massive amount of silver within the company.
8:29
I think when you said when you, when you measure it from a
8:31
silver equivalent perspective, over 300 million oz.
8:36
But when we talk about the Columba deposit, explain to me
8:39
and maybe help explain to our viewer who may not understand
8:42
this. Also I guess two things that you
8:44
see opportunity to currently it's at 54,000,000, recently
8:49
announced 54,000,000 ounces of silver, but you see potential
8:52
for that to grow to 100 million. Obviously that will be through
8:56
exploration, but explain to me as a non geologist, and probably
9:01
most of our viewers are non geologist.
9:03
Well, what makes this deposit unique in terms of the, I guess
9:07
the layout and how it how it's formed and and how that
9:10
translates into potential mining down the road?
9:14
So couple things, just the scope and size of the vein systems in
9:22
the veins we've mapped out in structures we see, we, we see
9:25
that potential for 100 million oz.
9:27
But more importantly that maiden resource really underscores that
9:30
potential more than anything. The drill bit tells the truth.
9:35
And we've had incredible long lengths our veins and the vein
9:40
width is the second thing. So wider the vein, the more
9:43
economic or potentially economic it is.
9:46
And we've got nice wide veins, averaging them out of the veins
9:50
that we've drilled so far is between 5 and 6 meters, which is
9:53
a great width to be mining in Mexico.
9:56
Many of the many of the deposits are mining sort of meter and a
9:59
half to meters or sometimes even less depending on grade.
10:04
So real great potential there. Potential economics are good.
10:09
Upside is tremendous. All our zones are still wide
10:12
open. So the next round of drilling,
10:14
we're just going to go after those wide open zones.
10:17
We're already know they're silver.
10:18
Just step out a little ways and keep step out again and again
10:21
and again till you find the edges.
10:23
So. So the veins are formed
10:25
vertically, is that correct? Yeah, so they are picture
10:29
fractures and faults in the ground.
10:31
Like think of San Andreas Fault, you got a big crack going way,
10:34
way down deep and, and it goes down so deep.
10:37
You got high pressure fluids, tremendous temperature and
10:43
pressure depth and they're circulating and convecting and
10:47
rolling around and leaching the metals out.
10:50
And then at some point the pressure gets released, usually
10:52
through a tectonic event and whoosh it.
10:55
You have a steam event comes rushing up the surface, cracks
10:59
open, it's bubbling up the surface.
11:01
All the pressure, temperature conditions change and that
11:04
changes the solubility, the metals drop out.
11:07
So also think of a hot spring. Most people bend to a hot spring
11:10
and that's the very, very top edge of an epithermal system is
11:15
the hot spring. It's where it comes to surface
11:18
and at some depth you start to get metal exposed.
11:21
And that's what's really not, it's not unique, but it's rare
11:26
on on Columba is we are right at the very, very top edge of this
11:31
hot spring epithermal system where we're exposed at surface
11:34
with the very leading edge. The erosional low is just cut
11:37
the vein barely and and then so whatever was deposit they're
11:43
still there to be found is basically not been eroded.
11:48
Interesting, interesting. And you said the width of these
11:50
veins. So I'm I'm envisioning, and
11:52
please correct me if I'm wrong, these big vertical veins, but
11:56
you said the width of the veins when compared to maybe the
12:00
average of what you typically see at Columba, the width is
12:03
actually much wider, larger. Is that correct?
12:06
Yeah. Well, sort of your minimum
12:08
mining width underground in Mexico on a vein would be meter
12:12
and a half minimum, OK. And you need pretty good grade
12:14
to carry that because you're diluting rock around it to get a
12:17
minimum width perhaps. And the amount of time it takes
12:21
to go in and drill a face, a rock, a meter and a half blast
12:24
it come out, wait for all that that air to be circulated out,
12:30
then laid out and go back in and then scoop what you glass it
12:33
out. It's the same amount of time or
12:36
more than it does to cut 6 meters wide.
12:40
And so you're cutting at least six times the volume in the same
12:44
time, or actually less because you can use big mechanized
12:47
equipment in those wide, wide Stokes wide openings.
12:51
So your costs are really get reduced quickly.
12:54
And, and the other, the other thing is, is that you're going
12:57
to have a certain mining rate, so many tons a day.
13:00
So you need a number of faces opened up on that vein to be
13:05
working at one time to pull those tons out.
13:08
And so the wider your veins, the fewer of those you have to
13:11
develop ahead of time. So that's the lower cost up
13:14
front. So all these things really start
13:16
to add up. Yeah, it, it sounds like it.
13:18
And then on top of that, I had a note here.
13:21
Your the, the resource that you just announced was at 284g per
13:27
ton silver. I know that you know, greatest
13:29
king in the mining sector isn't the typical kind of cut off in
13:34
Mexico considered to be around 150 grams per ton.
13:37
Do I have that correct? Yeah, for mining, rule of thumb
13:40
it's around 150 grams depending on the vein that and that's an
13:44
underground mining cut off, a real live mining cut off.
13:47
So it's a real good cut off to use when you do a resource
13:50
because it's already setting an economic bar for what you're
13:54
dealing with. That's what you want to know is
13:55
this thing I have the possibility of actually making a
13:58
mine or not. That's that's the answer we want
14:00
to get to quickly. Yeah.
14:02
And it, and it sounds like from the research that I've done and
14:05
now from listening to you, that, that, that that seems very
14:09
feasible that this project at some point could become
14:13
attractive and even more attractive as more silver
14:18
resources are established in the future.
14:19
That a big mining company might find this project and your
14:24
company in general very interesting.
14:26
Is that is that the goal with Kutney to to to develop this
14:30
resource in such an attractive manner and move it along the
14:34
development stage to a point where maybe maybe one of the big
14:38
major silver miners gets interested in it?
14:42
Yeah, that that's exactly our business plan with Kutney.
14:46
Discover these things, advance into the stage de risk them to
14:49
the stage where a mining company wants to buy the whole thing and
14:52
take it out. So that that's the path we're
14:54
heading down. We're taking those steps.
14:56
Next step for us now continue drilling, grow that resource
15:01
some more, get it to a size where you you think you can
15:04
deliver a positive preliminary economic assessment, which is
15:07
your first economic test or study on on what you found.
15:13
So that's the path going forward here in the in the immediate
15:16
future. Interesting.
15:17
OK. And I and I want to highlight as
15:19
well your resource is a silver dominant resource.
15:24
I know that some of the silver exploration development stage
15:29
companies will talk about a, you know, a certain number of silver
15:33
oz, but a lot of times that's factoring in a lot of the by I
15:37
guess we could call them by product metals, lead, zinc, that
15:40
type of thing. How do you stack up with that?
15:42
Is that is that a correct assessment that the Kootenai
15:45
resources is silver dominant? Is that an accurate way to
15:48
describe it? Yeah, it is particularly
15:51
Columba. Columba, what we've reported is
15:53
just a silver. There's also a lead zinc
15:56
component, a base metal component.
15:58
No, those two metals are the most common metals you find with
16:01
silver along with gold. And, and So what we're reporting
16:06
is all silver and Columba. So that's pure silver.
16:09
There is a lead zinc component there.
16:11
We are seeing in some of the deeper holes on our on our best
16:15
vein to date some significant base metal numbers showing up
16:21
and that's typical of these epithermal systems.
16:24
You often see a zonation and stronger base metal at depth and
16:28
eventually you'll find the bottom of the whole system.
16:32
And maybe we're seeing that, maybe not, but we'll know after
16:36
this next phase of drilling because we're going to be going
16:39
not only laterally, but we're going to be going deeper and
16:42
just to find the all edges of what we've already found in
16:46
these different veins. And that that's the first step.
16:49
After that, we're going to be going after veins where maybe
16:52
there's just a few holes, but no resource to find.
16:56
No one's silver, but we haven't enough holes for a resource.
17:00
Then we've even got a set of veins that have not even been
17:03
drilled yet. So the the targets and
17:06
opportunity here is is really great.
17:09
Interesting. So you, you have a very
17:11
successful background in the, in the mining business.
17:16
What about the rest of the management team?
17:18
As I was looking over the the the the other executives, it
17:21
seemed like you have a very deep level of experience behind,
17:25
behind Kutney. Yeah, we do.
17:27
Right from old fashioned prospecting, grassroots
17:31
exploration all the way up to the mine operations and
17:35
discovery, resource definition, feasibility, mine building, the
17:40
financing of all those steps. Our chairman and and Co founder
17:44
Ken Berry put a in recent history, put a open pit gold
17:49
mine in production in Arizona. That's now back seven years ago,
17:54
a finance that organized the financing that whole thing in
17:57
the in the build. And we've got on our board as
18:02
well people like John Mortar, who is former CFO of Alamos Gold
18:08
and we've got advisors like Hans Smith on the technical side,
18:12
whose specialty is in taking things from that discovery stage
18:15
to feasibility. Very, very good at it.
18:17
He guides us and gives us a lot of great advice there.
18:20
And then we've got financial advisors too, like Tiziano
18:23
Romanoli and and Jeff Sundor. And Tiziano was an early
18:28
financier of the national gold Alamos Minerals merger to form
18:33
Alamos Gold over 25 years ago approximately.
18:38
And so we got a lot of depth discovery side, the mining and
18:43
and the finance too. So as a junior company that's
18:48
really, really great experience actually to have.
18:50
I think not. Not very common for sure.
18:53
Yeah, absolutely. What about the investor roster?
18:57
Are people like Eric Sprott involved?
18:59
Anything you can tell us about who who owns the the stock in
19:02
the company? Yeah, he's a shareholder
19:04
participated in this last financing that was about to
19:07
close that we announced in the back of that resource estimate.
19:12
Then we've got, you know, resource funds as well like like
19:16
Sprott involved the the on the resource side and other well
19:24
known resource investors like Conway go to Switzerland.
19:28
We've got a lot of investors out of Switzerland from you know,
19:31
going over the years. We've got a great shareholder
19:33
base there and there's a lot of retail shareholders too, 8 or
19:38
9000 retail shareholders that we know about.
19:41
Interesting you, you mentioned a recent financing is a correct,
19:46
you raised $17 million. I imagine that will be used to
19:50
fund all the future drilling expansion of the resource.
19:56
Yeah, that, that's right. And so that's enough money for
20:01
the next 50,000 meters, which is a lot because the first main
20:05
resource here was 53,000 meters in total 211 holes.
20:10
So basically doubling what we've done in drilling.
20:14
And so this will give us money for drilling in the next several
20:19
months be 1218 months, we'll be we'll be drilling and and the
20:24
focus will be on expanding the, the resource, getting it bigger,
20:29
getting it up toward that 100 million, 100 million or more
20:32
perhaps. Let's see what happens with the
20:34
results and then look at at the first preliminary economic
20:39
assessment. Excellent, excellent.
20:42
So a couple more questions for you, Jim, if you have a few more
20:44
minutes, what, what are you most excited about as you look out
20:49
into the next 18 months to two years for Kootenai?
20:52
Well, really great set up here. You know, not only have we got
20:56
the Columba Discovery and expanding on that with all the
20:59
drilling that we that we're going to bark on here, that in
21:03
itself is very exciting. We're going to be adding Silver
21:06
Oz Great Discovery. What's going on at the same time
21:11
is entering what we believe to be a multi year silver bull
21:16
market in fact. And so silver price at the mid
21:20
30s now and and threatening to break out through 40 makes these
21:26
three other deposits start to look a lot more interesting,
21:29
especially two of them at these prices.
21:31
So they've been positioned with recent 431-O1 reports to bring
21:35
all the pricing current within the last 18 months and we've set
21:41
them up to advance when we're further into the Silva bull
21:47
market and we can get better value for them.
21:49
Right now they're just deposits and waiting.
21:54
Is that, is that the the the case that let's say we get to
21:58
let's say we get to 5050 dollars silver would more of your
22:02
resources in the ground they would become more more more Oz
22:06
would become economic at that point.
22:08
Is that a accurate statement? Well, as a as a general
22:14
statement, yeah, that's, that's, that's right.
22:16
I mean, higher price, better, better margins and as long as
22:21
the costs aren't going up at the same rate.
22:23
And, and so that, that's a good general statement to make.
22:28
I mean that that that's the way it is.
22:30
And, and for like for existing producers now every dollar up in
22:35
the silver price is profit to the bottom line.
22:38
Yeah. And so the resource, it's a, you
22:41
know, it's a similar metric, but what you have to do with the
22:44
resource, of course, is get at this stage and do your
22:46
preliminary economic assessment. So you know with a pretty good
22:52
degree of certainty what those underlying costs are going to.
22:55
Be OK, OK, interesting. Yeah, when I talked at the
22:59
beginning of our conversation that two years ago, the silver
23:03
price was $22.00. We're now 36, at least 50%
23:08
higher the price of oil, which is one of the major inputs I
23:12
know into the mining sector has remained the same during that
23:14
period. So, yeah, these big companies
23:17
are, I think, starting to generate significant,
23:21
significant cash flow. What about what?
23:24
What is there anything that keeps you up at night when you
23:27
think about the future besides the silver price?
23:31
Any challenges or what's the biggest challenge that you see
23:35
for the company going forward? Anything that comes to mind?
23:38
Well, right, right. The biggest concerns for a
23:41
junior company, The, the biggest single the concern is, are the
23:45
capital markets and access to capital because you don't
23:47
generate any revenue. And so you really have to
23:50
capitalize on these opportunities when there's a
23:53
good market to raise money and advance your projects.
23:56
And we've got excellent projects.
23:57
So now our, our biggest risks are on the on the technical
24:02
side, get the drilling done, build the size and move it on to
24:06
preliminary economic assessment and and on Colombo and then
24:11
eventually the other projects too.
24:13
So that's what we're really focused on.
24:16
And once we close this financing, that financial risk
24:19
is going to be removed for quite some months here.
24:22
And and so we're, you know, we're really well situated
24:28
coming into what we think is a great silver market now.
24:31
Yeah, it's super exciting. You know, I, I invest a lot in
24:35
the development and exploration stage companies in the silver
24:38
market. It sounds like you have all the
24:41
pieces in place to really capitalize moving forward, not
24:46
just with what you have, the projects that you have, but also
24:51
as we see a higher, you know, higher silver prices in the
24:54
future. It's going to be exciting to
24:56
watch you move along this line. I want to take one second to
25:00
share the screen and pull up your company's website for
25:03
everyone. Guys.
25:06
At the Kootenay Silver website, kootenaysilver.com, the stock is
25:11
traded on the TSXV with the symbol KTN and on the OTCQX at
25:18
K0 0YF. Again, that's Kootenay
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silver.com. The other thing I wanted to
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mention, Jim, just in general with the let's get us both on
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the screen there with, with the, the silver development
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exploration stage companies. I'm not a financial advisor.
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I know you're not either. You're the CEO of the company.
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But gosh, you know, I have a degree in accounting.
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I can read balance sheets, income statements and and know
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kind of the fundamental values behind companies and the entire
25:50
both gold and silver exploration and development stage sector I
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think represents some of the greatest value opportunities out
25:59
there when you measure kind of what you get for each dollar
26:02
that you put into these companies.
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And from my perspective, Kutney represents a really great not
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only value right now, but potential opportunity for
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capital appreciation. When I think about 300 million
26:17
oz, right, when you consider all the, you know, all in
26:23
measurement and you look at the market cap of the company before
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we went live here, I looked and I think in U.S. dollars, the
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market cap was around 60 million.
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If my math is correct, you're able to buy silver in the ground
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essentially for less than a dollar per oz.
26:42
And and that's not unique to Kootenay, that's kind of across
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the board. And when we look at the big
26:49
picture fundamentals about what's going on in the silver
26:52
market and where a lot of us think based upon facts where we
26:56
could be heading, it sure seems like an exciting time to be a
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silver exploration development stage company.
27:05
Yeah. Well, it is I have, you know, I
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have to agree and we are really well situated for a silver bull
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market. That's what I believe we're in
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and great opportunity here is the Columa Discovery fantastic
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classic, you know Discovery rise situation.
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So we're you know, we're adding value there at the drill bit and
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really excited to get back working on it.
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It's a good timing is good, finally, yeah.
27:37
Well, Jim, I really enjoyed meeting you on on behalf of
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myself and our viewer who's joined us, who loves silver.
27:44
I know that I want to say thank you.
27:47
Is there anything that I forgot to ask you?
27:49
Any closing remarks? No, Ron, that that's great.
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So just watch for our closing of our financing and then shortly
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after, in the next few weeks, we can get back to drilling and
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look forward to the continued program of drilling and drill
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results coming out in the next several months.
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Sounds great. I'll be watching Kutney closer.
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Thanks, Jim, and we'll see you soon.
28:13
Thanks, Ron. Bye bye.