Latest / SILVER / GOLD / $UFD Meme Coin Investing & Global Economics / **SILVER Investors!** You Best FOCUS on This! 🔥 (Precious Metals Update + Silver47 CEO)
Transcript
- 0:00Historic moves in the silver market and it's an exciting time
- 0:05to be a silver developer and explorer.
- 0:08Today we have a special guest, Galen McNamara.
- 0:11He's the CEO of Silver 47. We're going to get his take on
- 0:15what's happening right now in the silver market and then we're
- 0:19going to talk about what's going on specifically at his company
- 0:23Silver 47. They have three huge Silver X
- 0:28exploration development stage projects, all in the United
- 0:31States. I'll let him tell us about those
- 0:34later in our interview. Galen, welcome back to Ron's
- 0:37basement. Great.
- 0:39Thanks to thanks. Thanks for having me back on and
- 0:42great to be back. You know, you're just telling me
- 0:44backstage how the first time I was on two years ago, the silver
- 0:48price was something like $24.00. And what what a difference two
- 0:51years has made? Yeah, the said technically I
- 0:55think it was October 28th of 2023.
- 0:58I went and checked and the silver price closed at $22.79.
- 1:04I think I remember us, you know, talking about what a great value
- 1:08silver and the silver miners were at that point.
- 1:11So I think we've got a lot more people now joining us in the
- 1:15silver sector. I can tell you that from, you
- 1:17know, continuing to the put out content, there's more and more
- 1:21people coming in every day. And it really has been a
- 1:24historic move that we've seen in silver.
- 1:27I know we could talk about this for hours, but any kind of high
- 1:31level observations you've had about what's going on in the
- 1:34silver market? Well, it's, it's been a wild
- 1:37month or two or or something like that where we've seen the
- 1:40price move up to 120, which was, you know, not something that I
- 1:45think any of us thought would happen so quickly.
- 1:48And then pulling back to a little over $70.
- 1:50And I think today it's, it's just over 80.
- 1:53I mean, that type of volatility is a hallmark of a bull market.
- 1:56And I think if we go back to the bull marks of the past, we see
- 1:59that those types of pull backs actually have happened.
- 2:02And I don't want to say regularly because I feel like
- 2:05there was a, a Friday a couple weeks ago that was just a very
- 2:08rare day to the downside, but just a, a very, very rare day
- 2:13because we really did get going so much, so fast.
- 2:16I remember being at, I think it was Christmas dinner and, and
- 2:21looking at the futures price in Asia and going on when these
- 2:24markets open tomorrow, things are going to get crazy.
- 2:28And, and they, and they certainly did.
- 2:30So it's been a wild ride. Personally, I'm, I'm strapped in
- 2:35for it for the duration, but the, you know, one thing that I
- 2:38keep coming back to is that, you know, I, I look at the price of
- 2:42silver in Shanghai because that's become almost mainstream
- 2:45now. We're seeing that on X all the
- 2:47time and on all social medias. And it just really does seem to
- 2:50be leading what we're seeing here in North America, both in
- 2:56the futures and on the spot price.
- 2:58And it and it, and it just, it just screams of this disconnect
- 3:02between East and West and where do we have these abundance of
- 3:06paper contracts where there's, you know, hundreds of paper
- 3:09contracts out for every ounce of, of silver and registered
- 3:13vaults while it's here in the East.
- 3:14So I mean, let's make of that what we can, but you know,
- 3:18that's just something that I find interesting.
- 3:21Yeah. And I hear a lot of leaders in
- 3:23the precious metal sector saying that another difference with
- 3:27this rally is that previous rallies were kind of based on
- 3:31the in the on the futures markets on more speculation,
- 3:34whereas this rally has has kind of unfolded over a little bit
- 3:39longer period of time. And it's actually been a
- 3:41physical driven rally that it's the actual physical demand from
- 3:46China, from India, from other even Europe we're reading about
- 3:50now that there's this massive actual physical demand for the
- 3:53metal and it and it begs the question like where's the future
- 3:58supply of silver going to come from?
- 4:01Well, that's it. That is a really good question.
- 4:03And not only where's the future supply going to come from, but
- 4:06where's it going to come from domestically, because most of
- 4:09the refining capacity right now is in Asia and everyone knows
- 4:13that critical minerals are at the forefront.
- 4:15Silver is not one of them. And you can't just turn on mine
- 4:18supply with a snap of your fingers, especially in first
- 4:21world countries, because you have to walk through,
- 4:23unfortunately, years and years of of regulatory stuff from when
- 4:28you make a discovery onward. Now that's getting a lot better
- 4:31now with the current administration, but we just have
- 4:33environmental and and Labor Standards here that are the best
- 4:37in the world and just take a little bit more time.
- 4:39And that's a good thing. But again, you can't just turn
- 4:43on production, you know, like this in a material way.
- 4:47Yeah, I heard Phillips Baker, the previous CEO of Hekla, the
- 4:51America's biggest and oldest silver mining company, he was on
- 4:55a Kitco article of I'm sorry, interview a few weeks ago.
- 4:59And he said he thought the earliest that we could see any
- 5:03kind of an uptick in output of silver from the mining sector
- 5:07would be be the year 2030. And then, you know, on top of
- 5:11that, yeah, this is a a physical driven rally.
- 5:13It's a fundamental driven rally. You know, you and I kind of
- 5:17joked around at the beginning of this interview back in October
- 5:21of 2023 when the silver price was at $22.00.
- 5:25There weren't a lot of people out exploring and developing new
- 5:30silver mines. And like you said, it takes
- 5:32years, if not sometimes decades for, for for for discoveries and
- 5:39for new mines to come online. I want to give you a compliment.
- 5:43I say this to the other CE OS in the exploration and development.
- 5:46Like you were kind of a visionary, right?
- 5:48I mean, there weren't a lot of people 23510 years ago looking
- 5:52for silver that can fill this pipeline that's empty now.
- 5:57And I think it's, you know, a compliment to you into what
- 6:04you're doing with Silver 47. I mean, you've got three big
- 6:07projects and I am a shareholder. I have to disclose that and Full
- 6:12disclosure, but I was a shareholder in your previous
- 6:15company that that was a that was merged in to create Silver 47.
- 6:20And I wanted to find companies that had silver big projects in
- 6:24the ground in good jurisdictions and there just aren't a lot of
- 6:28them. So with that introduction, will
- 6:31you walk us through what's going on with Silver 47 because I'm
- 6:34very excited. Maybe we'll start up at the
- 6:37north with Red Mountain in Alaska.
- 6:39Kind of tell us what's what's there now and and what you're
- 6:42excited about in the future. Yeah, that sounds good.
- 6:45Well, you know, thanks very much for the compliment.
- 6:48It just goes back to the fact that, well, first of all, I'm a
- 6:51geologist. I've always been exploring for
- 6:54precious metals for generally for gold and silver, but also
- 6:56for uranium and copper and zinc and other things a little bit
- 6:59too, but very passionate about gold and silver.
- 7:01And you know, I've always known that good silver projects are
- 7:05really hard to find. Therefore, they're valuable and
- 7:08good silver projects in a place like the United States where
- 7:13property rights matters, put it that way, you know, or even, or
- 7:16even more difficult to find. So I can probably count the, the
- 7:19projects that would fit that would check that box for me in
- 7:23the United States on if not one hand, then almost one hand.
- 7:27And you we've got three of them. So yeah, I, I, we're very, we've
- 7:32been fortunate to have worked through the hard times and now
- 7:35are in a position to really add value to these projects.
- 7:38So let let me start with the project in Alaska.
- 7:41It's called the Red Mountain project.
- 7:43It's about 60 miles South of Fairbanks.
- 7:46It covers something like 40 miles of a belt of good rocks
- 7:51that can host these types of high grade deposits that we're
- 7:54after. Then in Alaska, it's very much a
- 7:57critical mineral mix with a lot of silver in play.
- 8:02Where there's silver, there's zinc, there's lead, there's a
- 8:05little bit of antimony, there's a little bit of gallium, there's
- 8:07a little bit of Indium, there's a little bit of tin even.
- 8:10The only thing in the deposit that's not a critical mineral is
- 8:13gold. So I, I figure if there's one to
- 8:14have, it's that in total, if I combine them all and just to
- 8:19keep it very simple in terms of silver equivalent oz, there's
- 8:23something like 167,000,000 silver equivalent ounces in the
- 8:27deposit so far. But I would say that that is the
- 8:30property is probably less than 5% explored.
- 8:34To put it conservatively, there's dozens and dozens of
- 8:37high grade showings at surface that either haven't been drilled
- 8:41or where they are drilled. You know, you, it looks like
- 8:44just in my professional opinion, the, you know, the makings of
- 8:46what could be discoveries. And then I know about that.
- 8:49The way that these deposits form, what we know just from
- 8:52years of exploration as an industry is that these types of
- 8:55deposits usually form in clusters.
- 8:58And when they get to be really good, you have, I would say
- 9:02projects of national importance that in Canada, you know, helped
- 9:06really shape the histories of the country.
- 9:08So that's the type of shot we're trying to take here.
- 9:11But we've got a huge, we've got a very strong resource base at
- 9:15167,000,000 silver equivalent ounces to start and open from
- 9:20there. So what we're going to do this
- 9:21summer is well actually before this summer.
- 9:24And what we're doing right now is we're updating that resource
- 9:26estimate just based on some drilling that's been done over
- 9:28the last few years and some very extensive geological modelling
- 9:32that we've done in house that we now have the expertise to do
- 9:36that perhaps this project hasn't seen before.
- 9:39That's number one. And if those numbers look good,
- 9:41I think it can lead into a preliminary economic assessment,
- 9:45which will help us talk about, you know, the economic impacts
- 9:49that a project like this can have on the company, but also on
- 9:52the state. So we're working through that.
- 9:55But what we'll do this summer is we're planning to have a
- 9:59significant drill program, up to 4 drill rigs and, and around
- 10:0215,000 meters to really prove up the deposit and try to make new
- 10:08discoveries on the rest of the project.
- 10:10So we'll be very, very busy up there and that's Alaska.
- 10:15Wow. 4 drill rigs this summer, that's significant, I would say,
- 10:20correct? Yeah, very significant, very
- 10:23significant. Exactly.
- 10:24That's probably the largest program that the project has
- 10:27seen to date. Wow, Wow.
- 10:29OK, so if we head a little bit to the South or maybe a lot bit
- 10:33to the South, but we land in Nevada and I know that there's
- 10:36another big exciting project there as well, the Hughes
- 10:40project. Yeah.
- 10:42Walk us through kind of what you have there now and then what we
- 10:46can be excited about with the Hughes project in the future.
- 10:50Yeah. So the Hughes project is one
- 10:51that at least me personally, I've been working on since the
- 10:54beginning of the predecessor company.
- 10:55It's what really got me into silver in Nevada.
- 10:59And of course, Nevada is known as the Silver State, and it's
- 11:01because of these two old Wild West mining places.
- 11:04One's the Comstock, and that's a little up to the north of us.
- 11:07The other is the Tonopah Mining District, and we're on the
- 11:10eastern half of the Tonopah Mining District and its
- 11:13extensions. It was a prolific producer
- 11:15between around 1900 and around a little bit before 1950, but
- 11:20hadn't really seen much or any modern exploration on our
- 11:22project before we started working on it in 2020.
- 11:25So through the, through the, through the, through the desert,
- 11:29I'll call it through the tough times.
- 11:31We drilled out a 44 million silver equivalent oz resource
- 11:35that's just silver and gold and about say 70 say 60% of the
- 11:41value is silver. And we also when I first went
- 11:45down there, I I saw that the extension of the district to the
- 11:48east was open for claim staking. So I staked it on behalf of the
- 11:51company. And then subsequently over the
- 11:54the last few years we've just kind of chipped away on
- 11:57exploration holes out there and all but one of them have hit the
- 12:00best one being 3 meters of 14150g per ton silver
- 12:03equivalent. So what we're going to do here
- 12:05starting in March, we're going to have a 7000 meter program
- 12:09maybe just to start if we're successful where we test for the
- 12:12extension of the entire historic Tonopah mining district.
- 12:16And if we can find it, the the size of the prize is potentially
- 12:19very large because this is a district that over 4 kilometers,
- 12:23you know, between what was mined in the past, between what we've
- 12:25drilled and what a neighbor of ours has drilled is 500 million
- 12:29silver equivalent oz over 4 kilometers.
- 12:32But we have a 4 kilometer extension where our exploration
- 12:36holes, all but one is hit. But what we haven't found yet is
- 12:39the main structure, the main vein, the big vein, the Veda
- 12:42Madre. If we can find that, then, you
- 12:46know, hopefully we're on to something and then and then
- 12:48we'll see what happens. But that's the goal for this
- 12:50program coming up in March, and that's the main question we're
- 12:53trying to answer. Wow, wow.
- 12:55So yeah, I think it's safe to say that based on history, we
- 12:58know there's a lot of silver in Nevada, There's a lot of silver
- 13:02at that specific location. And as you were talking, it
- 13:05dawned on me, I think you said they mined up through the like
- 13:081950s. That means there was like a 75
- 13:11year period where exploration, technology, new ways of finding
- 13:16silver obviously made some pretty big advancements.
- 13:19So now in the in the modern times where we're looking at
- 13:22things through a different set of eyes.
- 13:25That's 100% correct. The old timers were great the
- 13:28the original maps from the USGS from 1911.
- 13:31The geological maps are, are extremely accurate where we can
- 13:37be drilling a hole that might be 1000 feet and hit a hit a
- 13:40contact that a guy in 1911 projected within like 4 meters
- 13:46or something like that. But then say say within like 10
- 13:48feet or something like that, which is great.
- 13:50But you know, those got, they also didn't have the same
- 13:52technology that we have now to do exploration.
- 13:54They had the ideas, but they didn't have the drilling
- 13:56technology. They didn't have the 3D
- 13:58modelling software that we have now that just speeds up the
- 14:01visualization process greatly. And we did, when we first
- 14:07started working on this project, we did such extensive geological
- 14:10modelling from 1500, old maps that we put into the into the
- 14:14software and immediately came up with drill targets, not with AI,
- 14:17just with human intelligence and started hitting right away.
- 14:21But the other thing that's interesting here on this project
- 14:23is that there's a 2.74 million silver equivalent Oz resource in
- 14:28mine tailings. So it's basically crushed up
- 14:31sand in the desert on private property probably 500 feet off
- 14:38of US Hwy. 95 that at, hey, at $35 silver, it's probably a
- 14:44break even operation, you know, like we were a year ago.
- 14:47But at $80 silver, we think it could look very, very, very
- 14:51good. We think it could be produced
- 14:53quickly. But before we start talking
- 14:55about that, we have to do the legwork.
- 14:57So we're, we're starting the metallurgical work now
- 14:59historically was 80%. That's when Howard Hughes's
- 15:02people were working on it in the 1970s.
- 15:05So we're going to take some a modern approach to, to
- 15:07metallurgy and potentially reprocessing that I'm starting
- 15:11now and working through it very quickly.
- 15:14But you know, I'm, I'm personally pretty excited about
- 15:16that. Yeah, Yeah.
- 15:18Now I could provide potentially some cash flow to the company
- 15:21with, I mean, obviously almost 0 mining cost.
- 15:25Is that a a safe assessment? Yeah, exactly.
- 15:29And and the caveat being could because we have to do the study
- 15:32to sure to figure that out, but I'm just talking about what you
- 15:36know, my intuition. So yes.
- 15:37Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, because I've, I've, I've
- 15:40heard that before. There's a giant old mine down in
- 15:44Peru, I think it's Cerro de Pasco, Yeah, where they're doing
- 15:48the same type thing. And if correct me if I'm wrong,
- 15:52but like a lot of times 85% of the cost or 80% of the cost of
- 15:57of getting silver is actually the mining cost itself.
- 16:01So if the tailings are there. So that.
- 16:02Yeah, that's AI. Didn't know about that.
- 16:04That's an interesting. Yeah, that's an interesting
- 16:07development. So so we started up in Alaska,
- 16:10huge amount of silver in the ground.
- 16:13Great, exciting things to come. We just talked about Hughes.
- 16:16If we go even further, just a little bit to the South, but we
- 16:20land in New Mexico at your Mogi on project, which I know is
- 16:24really exciting as well. Can you give us some insight
- 16:28into what's going on there? Yeah, absolutely.
- 16:31So Mogi On is down in southwestern New Mexico.
- 16:34It's a large and largely unexplored vein field that would
- 16:41be like a brother to the Mexican vein fields that the Spanish
- 16:44have been mining going back 500 years.
- 16:47So we're drilling there now and we're drilling underneath some
- 16:50of the old stoves, some underneath some of the old
- 16:52mines, looking for extensions to those ore bodies, intersections
- 16:58between structures, which is which is important from a
- 17:00geological perspective. It's a small program because we
- 17:03had a permitting window there, but we still wanted to get a few
- 17:06things done while we had a chance.
- 17:08And, and that's a it's, it's just, it's probably the best
- 17:12remaining Bainfield left in the United States.
- 17:15I don't know of any other on any better options or any other
- 17:19candidates really. And I was in, to put that into
- 17:22perspective, I was just down there last week with some
- 17:25geologists and visiting the geologists that were doing the
- 17:29drilling there. And we did a little property
- 17:31tour and I was up on the North End of the on the project.
- 17:35That's maybe I want to say 3 or 4 miles from where we're
- 17:39drilling and you can, you can walk out the same vein that
- 17:43we've drilled at surface. It has great smoke in it, no
- 17:48fire, but great smoke. And it's not drilled And you
- 17:52just, you just if that was in Mexico or in Nevada, you know
- 17:56it, it would have been pinned with drill holes 50 years ago.
- 18:00So in that sense, it's a very rare and unique and I think
- 18:04valuable opportunity to start there.
- 18:06We've got 32,000,000 oz drilled out over several programs, but
- 18:10that's probably on again, less than 5% of the veins on the
- 18:14project, definitely much less than five, I mean less than 5%.
- 18:17So yeah, it's just that it's, it's the potential there is is
- 18:22very strong. Yep, and you said it was if not
- 18:25the best, you think 1 of potentially one of the best vain
- 18:30fields in the United States left right now?
- 18:32Is that correct? Absolutely.
- 18:34Absolutely. Wow, and and very little
- 18:36exploration, correct? Yeah, very little exploration.
- 18:40Almost none. Most of the vain field is
- 18:42unexplored. Until until Silver 47 and Galen
- 18:45showed up correct. And the team, definitely.
- 18:47And the team, yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely the team.
- 18:50So thank you for giving us kind of a have a great synopsis of
- 18:55all three of those projects. I know it's a a lot of
- 18:57information and there's a lot going on.
- 19:00If we look at the big picture numbers, if you add it all
- 19:03together, you talked about the number of silver equivalent
- 19:06ounces in the ground. What's the grand total with all
- 19:09three of the projects together? That's it.
- 19:11It's 247 million silver equivalent Oz grand total.
- 19:15Actually it's 237 inferred and another 10 indicated, but I'm so
- 19:20it's say approaching 250 million silver equivalent oz.
- 19:24We're not stopping there. We have 55,000,000 Canadian
- 19:28dollars in the bank that we're ready to deploy and are
- 19:31deploying this year into materially changing the resource
- 19:35base, trying to make new discoveries, stepping out and
- 19:39we're really excited to be able to do that.
- 19:41Yeah, yeah. Well, you, you, you answered my
- 19:43next question. What you know, what's the, what,
- 19:45what does the bank account look like?
- 19:47But it sounds like you've got a lot of money that you're going
- 19:50to be able to deploy on all three of these exciting projects
- 19:54throughout 2026 and possibly even beyond.
- 19:58And beyond, yes, definitely. And beyond and that that's
- 20:02exactly right. And if ever there was a time to
- 20:05go for it, it's now. So we're going to take our
- 20:08Scott. It's the most exciting time ever
- 20:11in the world of silver overall. If I'm a value shopper, Galen,
- 20:17I'm, I like to get a great value.
- 20:19And one of the things that attracted me to the predecessor
- 20:22company because you're previously was Suma Silver who
- 20:26owned the Hughes project in the Mogian project that was then
- 20:30merged with Silver 47. But it was the value of of what
- 20:35I was paying per oz for silver in the ground.
- 20:39Can you elaborate on that a little bit?
- 20:41I think the viewers really need to hear the kind of the value
- 20:45proposition. There, I can.
- 20:46So from our from our, how do we value, how are we valued based
- 20:50on every oz in the ground? Well, we got about $0.41 per oz
- 20:55just on an EV basis. Yeah, if you look at some of our
- 20:59peers, like $3 and up, you know, so there's a clear value gap
- 21:05there that, you know, we need to close and and that's not gonna
- 21:07be done like with a snap of our fingers.
- 21:09It's gonna take a lot of, you know, hard work and, and us
- 21:12getting our story out there. But hey, like if we go from
- 21:16$0.40 to $0.80, that's a double, right?
- 21:20So, I mean, yeah, there's just a there's a clear case for us to
- 21:23play some catch up here in a good market.
- 21:26Yeah, absolutely. That alone, plus the fact that
- 21:30through your exploration efforts you could act potentially,
- 21:33obviously add a lot of bounces to that 247,000,000 number that
- 21:38we talked about earlier. Exactly, exactly.
- 21:42So, you know, of course the building out Oz takes drilling,
- 21:45but historically what we've done as a company, as we've
- 21:48discovered silver for $0.25 an ounce give or take, and I think
- 21:51that's a pretty good value proposition.
- 21:53Yeah, that's accretive even at even at the value proposition
- 21:58now of $0.41 per oz based on the EV number that that you shared
- 22:04with us earlier. What about the shareholder
- 22:08registry? Insider ownership?
- 22:10Eric Sprott? Anyone big that's invested in
- 22:13the company? Yeah.
- 22:15So our largest shareholders are Eric's broad and management
- 22:19that's about 9% each management and board.
- 22:23And and then our other largest shareholders are resource
- 22:27focused funds and family offices generally from both the United
- 22:31States and Canada. OK, OK, excellent.
- 22:35Boy, I know I'm forgetting to ask you something.
- 22:38Is there anything that I forgot to ask you that you want to
- 22:40share with our audience before we wrap things up?
- 22:43You know what, nothing specific. I would just say like, please
- 22:47put Silver 47 on your watch list because this year's going to be
- 22:50very, very busy for us as we aggressively add value to all
- 22:54three of our US Silver projects. Yeah.
- 22:57And and you know, just from me personally, as I disclosed
- 23:00earlier, I've owned the stock, I own stock in the predecessor a
- 23:03company Suma Silver. When I think about the value of
- 23:08getting silver in the ground in the United States at this price,
- 23:13plus the upside potential with the exploration, I'm excited to
- 23:17see where things go during 2026, Galen, because it sounds like
- 23:21you've got a great plan of attack for all three of the
- 23:24projects and potential catalyst, potential catalyst that we could
- 23:28be hearing about throughout 2026 on all three of the projects.
- 23:33Before I forget, if you have one more second, I want to show the
- 23:35viewers the company website. Let me pull that up first.
- 23:40Here we are guys, silver-47.com and it's pretty cool.
- 23:45If you go over here and hover over the projects, they all flip
- 23:48down Red Mountain, Hughes Project and Mogi on.
- 23:52And there's a few other smaller projects that I think aren't
- 23:55necessarily the focus of the company right now, but those are
- 23:59kind of waiting there as well. Galen for potential future
- 24:02exciting. Correct, correct.
- 24:04And we're considering what the best ways, the best way for
- 24:09those projects for us to get value from now because we're
- 24:11probably not getting any, but there's, there's three quality
- 24:14projects there. Awesome, awesome.
- 24:16Hey, on behalf of myself, on behalf of the viewer who's
- 24:20joined us and learned a lot about Silver 47 and your
- 24:24insights into what you see happening in the overall silver
- 24:27market, thank you for joining us today, and I'll look forward to
- 24:32talking to you next time. Galen.
- 24:34Of course. Thank you, Roland.
- 24:35Great to be on the show.