Latest / Kitco MINING / Argenta Silver Targets 70–75M Ounces at El Quevar | Joaquin Marias

Transcript

Argenta Silver Targets 70–75M Ounces at El Quevar | Joaquin Marias · Kitco MINING

• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: Silver in Argentina.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to Kitco Mining with me, Paul Harris, here at the 2026 Precious Metal Summit in Beaver Creek, Colorado.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: Joining me today is Joaquin Marius, president and CEO of Argento Silver, which trades on the TSX V under the ticker AGAG.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Joaquin, welcome back to Kitco.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you very much, Paul.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's always a pleasure to be here.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's a pleasure to be with you, Joaquin, and we we've got some exciting things to talk about.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_01: You've had some very good news out recently.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: We're talking, of course, about uh your exploration at El Cueva Silver Project in Salta, in Argentina.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: You've got a resource of about 50 million ounces in all categories.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: I did a site visit to the project in February this year, and it's certainly clear that there's a lot of exploration inside upside still to come.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to be talking about that in just a moment.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: But before we get to there, I want to talk about the news you put out this week on your metallurgical test work results with uh recoveries of up to what 99%.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's absolutely amazing.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_01: Tell us about that.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this is a very, very serious study that we are doing.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very compiling and compelling metallurgical test work.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's a variability metallurgical test work what we are doing here.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the results that we put out are just preliminary, are just from the very first stage of many more stages that uh are making this study so compelling.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: So we will get the final results in the incoming 30 to 60 days.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: And again, what we have just disclosed is the very first stage of a larger process.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: And it's very interesting because what we put out in the news on the 21st of September this week, it's uh the results of rougher flotation and two cleaners.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: So the roughers it's very straightforward.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: You mill the material, then you put it in water and you flotate that.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the flotation of this will create a froth and you will recover that froth.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's very interesting to see the kinetics, how quickly it creates this froth.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: So in the first two minutes of floating, we got a very rich um froth with over 90% recoveries, and the cumulative ones in the incoming minutes achieve 99% for some samples, and uh other values that are very, very high in some cases.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh for some people, values that have never been seen before for silver concentrates.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: Two of those samples, two of those froths were clean, and this cleaner got us 96% recoveries with a grade of 14,857 grams per ton of silver on the concentrate.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: This portion, this stage, it's like very raw.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: There is no optimization work, there is no blending, there has been done nothing at all to make this better.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: And as we have been discussing with the metallurgist, how much better this could get when you have such results.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we don't know, we have to wait for the final results.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: And on the final results and the final concentrate, we will have a spreadsheet with all the details on the properties of what's the final result.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Something that is very important, Paul, to notice is that the study comprises 15 samples, which are 15 drill holes across the deposit.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: Those are new drillings and historical drillings that we have picked up.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: These ones actually have been picked up by the metallurgical firm.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And these 15 samples have been picked up actually to see what's the variability.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that's some other important conclusion that we have got from the result.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: When you see the spreadsheet that we put out, the chart, it's showing 95% average recovery all across the 15 samples.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: And this is very important because it's showing that there is no variability across the deposit in terms of silver recovery.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: And that will be translated in a low opex, low capex in the future, and many other things that well we will be disclosing when we get the final results.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: I want to highlight the the importance of variability test work.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um you said that you took 15 samples from across the deposit.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: The the purpose of this is to show that uh the metallurgical process, the recovery process works with all, no matter where it's sourced from, and to give you greater confidence that the recovery across the deposit will hit the the sort of target levels.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: Um recoveries of 95 to 99 percent, very high.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: What is usual in a silver deposit?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, you will see across the industry recoveries of uh from 60 larges or 70s to 85 percent.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that those would be like uh recoveries that would be acceptable.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Some extreme cases you would see 90 percent.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: I have to say that we got completely shocked when we saw the 99% recovery.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, if it's one or two samples, we would be like uh doubtful about that.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: But because this is a group of samples having such a great recovery, and uh and it's very simple.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's just getting the froth, taking a sample of the froth and assaying that on a machine, on an ICP machine.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: So these are not uh objective uh subjective results, are objective results that are coming out of an instrument that measures how much silver is in there.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: So there is no way that uh this is just a thought or an idea.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's a proper result coming out from a very serious study that we are doing.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we are very you know anxious to see uh what's the final result because the final result of this process is going to give us uh a final concentrate, which at the end will be the final product that we can put into the market to commercialize with uh smelters or traders or other corporates.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: So we are very anxious to see what is going to be the final result of this.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: There is obviously some variability on the mineralogy across the deposit, it's 1.5 kilometers of mineralization.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: So there has to be some variability on the mineralogy, but these results are showing us that recoveries are independent of the variability in mineralogy.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Wherever you are, you will get recoveries of around 90 to 95 percent.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: As you go forward with the project, the importance of this is the fact that you can design a processing circuit that doesn't necessarily need all the bells and whistles, which means um lower capital cost.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but before we sort of get further into that, why is there such low variability?
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: Why is there such high recovery?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_01: You mentioned the sort of mineralogy across 1.5 kilometers of deposits.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Why is this so good?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we are in front of a deposit that has an average grade on the resource of 482 grams per ton of silver.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a very, very high grade deposit with a lot of silver sulfites, mostly acanthite or argentite, and in some cases other minerals.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: But what we have seen is that uh those sulfites liberate themselves from the rock, are put apart aside from the rock very quickly when they are grind and they flotate very, very well.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's the kinetics of this material that it's very good.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: And uh again, there has been no optimization at all, no blending at all.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we will see all these results in the coming months, and we will have a better idea of how this is looking like.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: We are also running a mineralogy study on this, so we will understand very well what are the different mineralogies and how to work with them.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: And this is, as you mentioned, it's uh it's related directly to the cost in the future and what's going to be the capex or the opex.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: And we need to understand that a Kivar is not just another project in the middle of nowhere.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is a project that has a railway coming to camp.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: It has a road coming to camp, it has a gas pipeline coming to camp.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: There is a high voltage power line that comes really, really close to the mineralization area.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: So we have a camp already for 100 people that could be expandable for 200.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: You were sleeping there when you went to the to the visit, and uh and uh, you know, there's so much infrastructure, over 80 kilometers of internal roads, and the mineralization is coming from surface into the ground.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: So we are starting from surface in different places, and all this is translating in CAPEX that hasn't to be put by the investors or the shareholders into building all this while you have other projects around the world where you need to build all this infrastructure.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Here, the infrastructure it's already been built, it's 100% operational, and I think that all this is starting to get a more compelling story into the future, and we are obviously aiming to future production with this.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: This is where we are going, right?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: With the test work you've just done, how fine did you have to grind the samples to liberate the particles?
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: Because obviously that's a key, can be a key impact in the the OPEX.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: So this has been uh grinded into a mesh of 70, which is the usual mesh that you would go.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: You could go with meshes of 80 or 70.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's average for for what it's done.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: And again, there is no no any optimization there.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we can get coarser material, maybe we can get finer material.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: We need to see that now when they start doing all the other tests of the metallurgical test work.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Again, the metallurgist grind the rock to an average mesh.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: He put it to float on the roughers just to see what was the response, and we got shocking results.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: There has been no more work than that.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is just the very first stage of a very larger process, and we need to wait until the final results come.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so Joaquin, from here, what comes next in terms of further testing and what is that leading you towards in terms of economic studies for the project?
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we are expanding the resource with drilling.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: We have two drill rigs at this moment drilling in both open ends, the one that it's shallow on one area and the one that it's a little bit deeper on the other area.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: We are drilling those.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: We had a terrible lag uh in terms of uh sample results from the laboratory.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Now we are starting to get those certificates back, and we will be disclosing those uh drilling results um very, very soon.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so we are starting to receive them, waiting for the results.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Once we have them, they will be disclosing to the market.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: So the market will see a lot of extension drilling disclosed.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: The market will see very soon the final results from the metallurgical test work, and we are aligning everybody to get a mineral resource update by March 2027.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: So the idea is to expand uh the resource to include all this drilling into that resource.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the other important thing is that we have been drilling a target that it's called Money.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: We put five drill holes into money, which is a very, very high grade area on surface.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: You could literally walk on top of those samples.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: Money it's a place that came with samples that are in between 1.5 kilograms, 2.4 kilograms, 4.5 kilograms, 6, 16, and even 20 kilograms per ton of pure silver on surface.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we put five drill holes there, we are testing how thick is that layer, and if that works well, we will bring more drilling into the area, trying to include that as well in the future resource.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: So there are many ways where we or many areas that we are trying to put ounces to include into the resource, but this is very straightforward.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: The mineralization is only in one place.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: We are expanding both ends.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um, money is a target that is very, very close at 500 meters away from the main deposit on surface as well.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: So all that information is going to come into the mineral resource update, which is, as I said, coming out in March 2027.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that uh that's going to be also probably a re-rating event for the company, showing the people that this is getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: With the for the resource update coming in March next year, do you have a sort of target that you're aiming for?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: You've got 50 million ounces in all categories now.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: Are you looking at potentially doubling that?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's very important to mention that the 50 million ounces is 49 million ounces, but let's say around 50 million ounces, that uh 45 of those 50 are indicated and that are that are very well the risk.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: The drilling in between the deposit there is just uh 30 to 20 meters in some cases.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: So the the spacing of the drilling is really tight on those 45 million ounces.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: The other 5 million ounces are in fair, and uh this is very good because we could convert those indicated into reserves very quickly.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: What I want to say is that we have too many indicated and we are aiming to add a lot of infer.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Our base target is around 70 to 75 million ounces for the next uh update in total for the resource.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but who knows, maybe we have some surprises and it goes over 75 million ounces, which is a lot considering that we have 50 now, adding 25 million ounces to the deposit in just 18 months of drilling.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: That could be a lot, Paul.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you were there, you have seen how much work we are doing in place.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, for the last 40 years in this project, there has been only 100,000 meters drill in the project.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: We drilled 27,000 meters just in 18 months.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_01: With the drilling you're doing at either end of the structure, are you seeing similar grades as you've got in the existing resource?
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, similar and even better in some cases on the shallow portions are very similar grades to the shallow portions of the deposit.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: But on the deeper portions of the deposit that we are drilling, we are starting to see grades that are even higher sometimes.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: We have some hits there that were 40 meters or approximately 40 meters with over a kilogram of silver per ton.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: We had 40 meters with above half kilogram of silver per ton.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about kilograms here, right?
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: So very fairly continuous areas of 40, 20 meters with very, very, very high grade.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: So we are very convinced that uh all this will be included into the resource with no problem at all.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so the drilling program you've got underway that's uh 25,000 meters, I believe, upsized.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: With the once you've completed the the drilling for the resource update, is the the idea then to just continue drilling, continue the exploration drilling to subsequently continue to add ounces?
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, of course.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: The idea is to keep the drilling on the extension, but as well remember the upside potential of this project.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: We were talking about that some minutes ago.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_00: Once you come out of the resource area, this is a very, very big project.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: We have over 20 targets of exploration, and we will move one of those rigs or we will bring another rig potentially to start drilling those other targets that we have in the property.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's 20 exploration projects or targets that could become a different project in the future.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: And these targets are amazing.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: Most of them are gold copper targets, in some cases, only gold targets.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we have already disclosed some of the evidences that we have had in some of these targets, and we will keep working on them because uh, you know, it's it's it's a project that has been pretty much neglected on the side of the exploration potential, on the uh on the untap potential that this project has.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: It was explored only 3% of the property when we acquired this.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: At this moment, we have covered 30% of the property in 23 months of work.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: So we are doing a fantastic job.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: The crews in the field are moving very, very fast.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: We have a tremendous team there, Guillermo Peralta, it's our chief geo there, leading the team, and he's moving the crews very fast.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I think that the market is not getting yet the full idea of this.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think that we have moved too fast for the time that the market moves.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is a project again that it has the railway to move the concentrates or the or to DSO the ore in the future.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: We have the mineralization coming up to surface, it's just a pure silver play.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we have fantastic metallurgical test work, uh and the infrastructure is right there.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: So there are there are so many things that are together and it's a pure silver play.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I think that uh we need to do probably a better job on communicating how all this story is coming along because as I said, we are moving forward to the risk as much as we can the deposit, trying to bring it into production in the future.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: You you're doing a lot of drilling, obviously that costs money.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe give us a recap of the company's balance sheet and cash position.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_00: So we raised money for the last time in January this year.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: We raised$23 million in January of this year.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: And guess what?
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: We have$24 million still in the bank.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we haven't raised any cent for the last nine months.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we still have a lot of money in the bank.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: We have 24 million Canadian dollars in the bank that can get us through the mineral resource update uh and and even further into 2027.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: So we are very well in terms of cash.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, obviously, we always, as I say, we always take care of a lot of our dollars and we don't spend any dollars if we are not sure that that dollar is going to bring us a return on investment.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: So we are very careful on how we manage the money.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm all the time working with my finance team, with the CFO and with the guys in Argentina.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: So we steal very, very well in terms of cash in the company.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: I want to end our conversation or finish our conversation, Joaquin, by looking at the the broader political landscape.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: Under the the last three years, the government of President Javier MLA has done uh uh a very good job bringing Argentina back onto the mining map with uh um rigging legislation, for example.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_01: But Argentina has a presidential election next year, and it does seem as uh the opposition, the perenists, are starting to um gaining strength again.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: I know it's a bit too preliminary to sort of call or or talk about what may happen, but um you know what what's the feeling on the ground?
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a danger?
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_01: Is there a risk that the sort of mining revolution that uh Malay has quarterbacked that that potentially could unravel?
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: Look, I don't think that that will happen.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh it's uh very clear that Argentina has embarked itself on a pathway that is a pathway of productivity, of production, of investment.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: The foreign direct investment that we are starting to see in the country wasn't there in the last 20 years, and now we are starting to see that coming up.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: For example, next to our deposit, we have Rio Tinto working in SLR, and Rio Tinto has made an investment or committed an investment of$7 billion under the Rigi clause to start working there.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we have companies like First Quantum, uh Silver also in the province, and many other ones that are disembarking just in the province of Salta.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: There are also many other companies that are disembarking in Argentina.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: We have seen major investments by BHP, the Landing Family, and so on.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: What I want to say is that there this is probably a one-way direction um thing that uh the that even whatever government comes up next is not going to unwind all this because they start to see that uh all these investments are starting to flow into the other portions of society or of the community in Argentina.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: Something that it's very important maybe to mention, and it's it's my personal opinion, right?
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: This is a very personal opinion.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think that whatever it's coming, it's going to be what we had before.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think that if it's not Miley as himself winning the election, we will have something very similar on the same trend.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know if he's going to go for re-election or not, or whoever it is, but if if it's not himself, whoever comes into position will have a very similar line on site.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, Millet is doing very powerful claims now on the UN these days about uh the South Atlantic uh relationship that we have with countries like England or how it's a real commercial relationship with some other countries, and that it's very strengthening uh doors inside in Argentina, right?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's giving a sense of unity and patriotism again, and I think that that's also playing in favor for this kind of governments.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, congratulations once again on the great results on the metallurgical test work.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: Argento Silver trades on the TSV under the ticker AGAG.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: Joaquin Maria, thank you very much for joining me again.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Paul.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: And we have a lot more to come from the 2026 Precious Metal Summit in Beaver Creek, Colorado.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: So stay tuned and hit that subscribe button.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: This is Paul Harris for Kitco Mining.