Silverco Mining

Thank you to the Mining Forum for putting this on. I appreciate this is the last speaker of the day, so thank you all for being here. And I also appreciate the only thing keeping you from here and a libation is me. So I’m gonna try to wrap it up in 20 minutes or so, and certainly we’re around. Joining me is George Paspalis in the front. If you know George, he’s been a consultant and great strategic advisor, so feel free to reach out to George as well.

This is Silverco Mining. We’re gonna talk about forward-looking statements, obviously. Silverco has been around publicly for less than one year. We listed last year in October. We’ve made a lot of headway. We came out very strong saying we wanna be a 10-million-ounce-a-year producer. Pretty bold statement for a brand-new company. I’m gonna walk you through how we are on track to get 60 to 80% of that already within our first year.

We are in Mexico. We got two great jurisdictions, Sierra Madre up in Chihuahua as well as Querétaro, both safe, both great mining jurisdictions. We got a really great team, and walk you through that. We’re gonna be very rapid to production. In fact, we’ve purchased an operating mine. We’re ramping that one up, and we’re restarting a second mine. We’re new. We just put out the results of our operating mines one week ago, so we’re still relatively unknown, and that makes us pretty cheap compared to some of our peers.

Our team, I’m not gonna list everybody here, but I am a big believer that you wanna bet on the jockey as much as the horse. And one thing you’ll see as you go through some of the names, if you look at the five top-performing silver stocks in the last decade, we got senior executive experience from three of those. So MAG Silver, that was George, SilverCrest for Tara Hassan, and Gary Brown from Wheaton Precious Metals. We’ve also got a lot of building experience, got a lot of operating experience, and a lot of experience in Mexico. It’s a star-studded list. I’ve got a lot of gray hair. I learned a few things, and the most important thing I’ve learned is to put good people around me, so very fortunate to have this team.

Corporately, we’ve got just under 55 million shares outstanding, just over 60 million on a fully diluted basis. We’re trading right now at about 500 million Canadian. That’s roughly 350 US dollars. We’ve got a good shareholder base and a really tight structure. We got about $54 million, these are Canadian dollars, on the balance sheet as of the end of Q2, and we’re well-funded to execute on our strategy.

So as I mentioned, we got near-term cash flow. Before we get in the details, we acquired the La Negra mine in June, or I’m sorry, in May of this year. We’ve had it for a few months. It is producing roughly at 50% capacity. We’re gonna take that and ramp it up through the middle of next year. And then we have the Cusi mine that is in northern Mexico. It’s on a restart plan. We’re on track with that, both in schedule and budget, and we’re gonna deliver our first concentrate shipment here in Q4 of this year. A bit coincidentally, but we’ll ramp that up to full production here through the first half of the next year as well.

This is our combined production profile. Right now, as I mentioned, La Negra is producing, kind of poor production right now, but in 2027, we got both mines ramping up. We’ll have over 4 million ounces of production next year, and then we ramp to an average over the next few years of almost 6 million ounces, and we peak at over 7 million ounces. The AISC will be sub $30, and the combined NPV, these are now all US dollars I’m referring to, but the after-tax NPV combined on these assets is 450 million US. You can see the production profile as we ramp up over ’26, ’27, and ’28, and the circles there are the percent silver of our actual combined deposits. So we’re roughly 75% silver in all that production.

We’re new. We’ve not been on the market for one full year yet. One week ago, we put out our results for PEA on La Negra, so we’re still quite cheap relative to our peers, particularly given the near-term cash flows and production profile. This is another low valuation slide again. Unsurprisingly, given our stage, we have a catch-up we think will happen soon.

Here’s our leverage to silver. Mentioned about 75% silver on the combined both of these assets. Cusi, the asset to the north that we’re restarting, is 90% silver, and La Negra is closer to 65% silver, but very high in actual silver content. Our base case NPV is done at $50 and $45. For every $10 increase in silver price, we get a $150 million after-tax NPV bump in our projects.

So La Negra, this one I’m gonna talk about quickly, it is an active underground mine. It’s running at about 50%. It is just north of Mexico City in the state of Querétaro. It’s a 2,500 ton per day underground mine. It’s a standard crushing, grinding, flotation circuit. Requires very little cash flow to get it from 50% capacity to 100% capacity, and it’s in a great, safe jurisdiction. As I mentioned, we completed this transaction in May of this year.

Here we put out one week ago the base case economics. This is based on a PEA, $330 million US on an after-tax NPV, very quick payback. Life of mine production is over 4 million ounces at an AISC roughly $25. Currently an eight-year mine life with lots of opportunity. Requires $21 million US in growth capital, of which at $50, which is the base case we use these numbers for, we only need to fund 12.5 million from our balance sheet. The rest of it’s coming from operational cash flow. And at the current spot price, we have to fund less than 5 million from our balance sheet. So it is producing some cash flow right now, and we see a lot of good opportunities on a go-forward basis.

Here’s the production profile that we see at Querétaro, or I’m sorry, at La Negra, located in Querétaro. But you can see in ’27 we get up over 2 million ounces, and then ’28, and particularly the years after 2030, we really ramp up to 4 million, and then starting to peak, well over 5 million ounces. Couple things. This requires, as I mentioned, about $12.5 million off our balance sheet to get this into full production. We’ll be doing that through the first half of next year, and that’s how you see this production profile.

On a resource base that we just put out, nearly 100 million ounces in the indicated category, grading at just over 200 grams per ton silver equivalent, and 65% of this by revenue is from silver. It’s got some great cash flows. At the base case of $50, La Negra will kick off nearly $100 million in after-tax cash flow, and that again jumps up quite a bit obviously as silver prices go up.

So we need to do two principal things to get this asset fully ramped up and operational. One, it’s underground. The fleet is very old and has been poorly maintained. We’ve ordered six pieces of new equipment that will start arriving in October, so next month, and the last piece will be here in January. That’s gonna allow us to get ore from underground to the surface. Secondly, we’re going to a dry stack tailings facility. We’ve got lots of storage capacity on our tailings facility currently, but a bit limited in where we can put wet tailings. So we’re moving to a dry stack tailing. That’ll give us greater flexibility where we stack. That facility will be arrived on-site and built in Q1, and then we’ll ramp up through Q2 and be steady state by H2 of this year.

We see some great growth opportunities. We’ve got lots of exploration potential. Historically, this mine was run by Peñoles for three decades with head grades very close to 150 gram silver. We see lots of opportunity to get back into those silver grades. The projection I showed to you before is closer to 100 gram silver, but lots of good opportunities. We’re doing a 15,000-meter drill program here, which we’ve kicked off already.

And then we’ve got our Cusi Mine. This was a mine that was running as recently as 2023. It’s incredibly rare in that it’s very high-grade silver, over 90% at today’s spot price. It’s in the Sierra Madres. It’s just this prolific belt of mineralization, not a better silver district in the world. It is a 1,200 ton per day mill. We are refurbishing that right now. We’ve got all the permits. So we projected for a long time now we would be restarting this year, getting our first concentrate shipment out in Q4 and ramping this up through the first half of next year. We’re on track to do that.

Here’s the production profile. It’s a 1,200 ton per day, again, underground mill, crushing, grinding, flotation, and it will kick out 2.5 million ounces a year over an eight or nine-year mine life. This is running at about 260 grams per ton silver. We like it a lot. We see a huge potential to really increase not only the resource, but increase throughput at the mill over a more medium term. We’re doing a 30,000-meter drill program here currently.

Here’s the NPV and the results of our PEA that we put out earlier this year. As I mentioned, 2.5 million ounces a year, nine-year mine life, sub-$30 AISC. Very light capital as well, so this is $19 million. That includes contingency. We’re probably 80% of the way through that right now. On the mill side, the crushing, grinding, conveying circuits have all been dry commissioned and ready to go. We’ve got two mine contractors underground, one at Promontorio, which is where they were mining as recently as 2023, and the other one is a brand-new zone called San Miguel. We are 15 meters away from hitting ore at San Miguel, and we’re just finalizing the development at Promontorio. We’ll start pulling ore and stockpiling for commissioning in the next several weeks.

Okay. Boy, I’m going to keep out of exploration too. Are there any geologists in the room? One. Okay, that’s gonna get me into trouble. But like I say, we have 45,000 meters of drilling. We see some real upside. We just brought on Jesus Valador, he’s got a PhD in epithermal systems, which is what Cusi is. I’m confident by the end of this year drilling both of these assets, we’re targeting well over 100 million ounces in the measured and indicated category. And we just see none of these deposits have received any capital. Probably neither of them have seen a modern-day exploration program in the last 15 or 20 years. Obviously, we’re in a much different silver environment, so we’re looking to really get these things to shine.

Very quickly, you can see this is the block model that we have at Minera La Negra that we just put out. As I mentioned, just shy of 100 million ounces in the indicated category and another 11 million ounces in the inferred. Right at the bottom there, you can see the zone called La Negra. That’s both the zone and the mine. It’s a little confusing, but this is an area that currently has 5 million tons to it. It grades much higher than average. This is the historic stuff that Peñoles was mining at grades like 150 gram silver, plus another 100 or so grams of silver equivalent that comes in the form of copper, zinc, and lead.

We believe that La Negra we can start pulling into the mine plan here closer to 2028. In the current base case PEA, that doesn’t come into the mine plan until 2030, so good upside. We also think there’s a good opportunity to add another 2 million tons here, so that’s another 30-plus percent, 30 or 40% to La Negra itself. And this is what Jesus is looking at for his exploration targets. So very good chance that Minera La Negra on its own can be doing steady state north of 5 million ounces at very good cash costs. So we have 15,000 meters of our program underway, and we are just looking for more grade, longer mine life.

At Cusi, doing 30,000 meters of drilling, there’s a couple of things I’ll point out here quickly. I’ll keep it high level out of the geology, but you can see Promontorio. It’s in the middle of that rhyolitic tuff. That’s that magenta color. That’s where the mineralization’s hosted. Promontorio is where it was mined as recently as 2023. We have rehabilitated the underground. We are finalizing development there.

And then San Miguel, further to the south, this was a new zone that was never available in this package. We’ve consolidated the land. San Miguel we like a lot. This is where we’re putting in the new underground access. Right now we’re 15 meters from ore. San Miguel we did a little bit of drilling privately, about 10,000 meters, and we put out about 10 million ounces of indicated resource, 17 million ounces of inferred, about 260 grams per ton silver. And we think that can probably double in growth. We’re drilling it right now.

Promontorio we are drilling. There are some areas in that mine right now that are considered waste that we’ve news released and we’ve been able to put into ore. It was only waste because there was no infill drilling, so we’ve done that work. And then lastly at San Juan to the north, last year we stepped out 600 meters to the east. And put that in perspective, you can miss an entire big deposit in a 600 meter step out. We hit 4.3 meters at roughly 450 grams silver there. And right now we’re doing the infill drilling. If it pans out as we hope it does, that’d be a third area where we can get ore from this mine and great opportunity to increase throughput. So that’ll be a more medium-term goal. And those are the things we’re focused on.

I’m gonna leave the rest of this. The key takeaway, there’s two of them. We’re gonna be producing north of 4 million ounces in 2027 as we ramp up two mines. We are looking closer to a production profile of 5 to 6 million ounces with real potential on some of these opportunities to get 7 or 8 million ounces a year. This is at a cash cost, or I’m sorry, at an AISC of less than $30. We got the balance sheet to do it. We’ve got an incredible team that’s been here and done a lot of these things. And currently our market cap is very low, like I say, about 500 million Canadian. If you stack us up against some of our peers, we think we’ve got a great opportunity to add some real value for existing and hopefully new shareholders as we move forward.

So appreciate everybody’s time. Enjoy the rest of the show, and you can look us up at silvercomining.com, and we trade on the TSX Venture Exchange under SICO and on the OTC under SICOF. So thank you very much and happy to take any questions. Any questions from the room?

Any water issues at either mine?

No. Short answer, it’s quite dry at Minera La Negra. We’ve got enough water with our water license. At Cusi, it’s actually quite wet, so we do quite a bit of pumping. We’re getting a better handle on that, but we can keep up. We upgraded our pumps there a year ago and I think we’re figuring out the hydrology a little bit better and we’ve got enough water for milling.

And you have one mine in commissioning and one mine in restart and targeting to have two operating assets by 2027. While we’ve seen the Mexican pesos being very strong and the work week shortened is starting in the next few years, rolling out in the next few years. So how do these fit in your budget plan, and what’s the approach you’re gonna take to mitigate the impact?

Okay, so that was for labor force?

Yes.

Yeah, it’s a great question. We’re gonna be north of 600 employees here fairly quickly. At Minera La Negra, which is an operating mine, they have a very good team that’s fully staffed up. We added a few roles. We brought in a new general manager. He’s got decades of experience. He’s really helped already improve some of the operational efficiency, and we brought in a couple other key personnel. But otherwise, really good labor force there.

And then at Cusi, we’ve got a fantastic team, a lot of experience, whether it’s Fresnillo or Agnico or lots of the companies you guys know. And we are already 60% of the way staffed up there. And quite honestly, our team’s doing a great job recruiting other friends of theirs and other good colleagues. So, so far we’ve been quite lucky. One of the things that we do that might be a bit unique, we do provide equity to a number of our individuals, both corporately but also at the operational site. So I think it’s very attractive for them. We pay decently. We really wanna be the go-to name.

And I guess the other key point, we really see everybody in Mexico is a Mexican national that works for us. We’ve got a couple Mexican nationals working for us at the corporate level. Mexico has some great miners. They know what they’re doing. We really try to provide a little bit of guidance and some of the capital resources they need. Otherwise, let the locals run the show, and I think they do a fantastic job and it’s a great strategy.

Okay. Thank you, Mark. That concludes our session this afternoon. Thanks for joining.

Yep. One question there. [audience applauding]