Impact Silver – A Broad Review Of Operations, Development, And Exploration Work At All Projects
Fred Davidson, President and CEO of Impact Silver (TSX.V:IPT – OTC:ISVLF), joins us to provide a comprehensive update on production, development projects, and exploration plans for this year. The Company is currently focusing production operations from the Guadalupe Mine and San Ramon Mine, with underground exploration ongoing at both projects, along with expansion of Guadalupe towards the Pachuqueno target. There is also some small-scale mining contribution coming from both the Veta Negra Mine and the Mina Grande Mine, with expansion exploration at both of those projects as well.
Over at the Capire Production Centre, where the company has previously done some test mining, they are reviewing utilizing an XRT ore-sorting scanner to upgrade the ore mined before going to the mill, increasing the grade and reducing waste rock by up to 40%, allowing for more ore to be processed through this process. There is also key exploration work going on at two different targets near this project.
We wrap up with the greenfields exploration as part the overall 25,000 meter drill program in 2022, where there was just work completed at the newer San Antonio target for both gold and silver, as well as work planned on the Valley of Gold target, and around the historic Alacran Mine. Fred mentioned that as they work towards permits at Alacran, and then dewatering, is one of the targets he believes could really become a key focus for exploration and development moving into next year.
If you have any follow up questions for Fred regarding Impact Silver, then please email us at Fleck@kereport.com or Shad@kereport.com.
It’s a good question Terry. To my understanding of how ore-sorting technology works, having spent a few hours reviewing videos on it when Bayhorse Silver and Novo Resources first explored it’s utilization to upgrade their ore in a similar manner, it really does discard mostly the waste rock so that would likely be moved to waste dumps or backfilled in mines. Rather than trying to squeeze more mineralization out of that discarded material, it would likely be more advantageous to just keep mining new material.
Okay I was thinking of that lake of silver ore on SKE property, being fought over. Wonder how that is going. Of course that ore was not sorted by machine so the grade would be much higher.
Yeah, that is different because that is old tailings, where there still is lot of mineralization discarded as waste by the old miners, when they didn’t extract everything in their flotation circuits. There are a lot of tailings dumps where they can be mined a second time using modern methods and still pull value out of them. Often times, what was “waste” in prior decades, is now quite economical ore because grades have plummeted for decades and metals prices are now much higher than they were in the past.
Not only Skeena at Albino Lake that you mentioned (according to Walt they are still going back to court on that to fight the prior ruling), but Tarachi Gold is going to do that at their old tailings project, and Avino is doing that at their old tailings dump. I invest in two companies (Sylvania Platinum and Jubilee Platinum) that strictly extract platinum/palladium/chrome from old tailings dumps in South Africa for example, so that can be quite lucrative.
Great info. Both of you asked good questions.
Exploration could be the source of huge gains that “stick” but I’d say the primary catalyst will again be the price of silver. When the market is confident that silver has bottomed and is heading higher, IPT will probably give us the leverage we’ve come to expect based on the company’s long track record.
https://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=IPT.V&p=D&yr=1&mn=1&dy=0&id=p41532745665&a=1045124498
Closing a week above 40 cents will be a big deal.
https://stockcharts.com/h-sc/ui?s=IPT.V&p=W&yr=3&mn=3&dy=0&id=p73797686985&a=941870002
Thanks Matthew. Yes, agreed, IPT has nice torque to rising metals prices for sure, and the exploration upside, or potential increase in production through bringing Capire back online or developing San Antonio or Alacran would just be additional catalysts.
For a junior, its risk profile is more “blue chippy” than most. It’s unique in several ways that help to reduce risk. Of course I’m talking about catastrophic risk not price volatility risk. I’ll buy more if it dips to .26 again as it might soon.
For just those reasons, Impact Silver is consistently one of the larger weighted silver stock positions in my portfolio. I trade it a lot due to the volatility, and regularly prune it down on rallies, and add to it on dips, trading around the core position to generate funds to use elsewhere.
In a recent Seeking Alpha article on Coeur(CDE), Taylor Dart states the following:
“…with Coeur continuing to have one of the worst track records of share dilution sector-wide.”
Yeah, Taylor has the hate on for Coeur, and has used that same line about having “one of the worst track records of share dilution sector-wide” on like a dozen companies he covers, so it is just slam he likes to deploy. He’s not wrong, that many mining companies are too dilutive, but they can’t all have the worst track record. He used that same line on Americas Gold & Silver just a few months back, and I remember seeing him use the same line for a few other companies this year and last year.
The last time I responded back to him on Coeur, on their potential to sell the Sterling deposit (that they acquired from Northern Empire) to AngloGold Ashanti (because of their interest in developing their Silicon and the Bullfrog deposit and Lynnda Strip they picked up from acquiring Corvus) to raise capital to help fund the increases in costs to the Rochester expansion, then he got all pissy with me for suggesting it. I’m not going to poke the bear by reminding him there are plenty of worse diluters then Coeur in the mining sector. He fails to mention the other options the company has to divest assets or bring Silvertip back into production to increase revenues (which he sees as many years away, but this assumes current metals prices for years to come, and negates the potential for much higher gold and silver prices in 1-2 years which changes the math substantially), or that Coeur has messaged they could also bring on debt or capital from streaming/royalties to help fund extra Rochester costs without being as dilutive to the share structure. Often it is not what T.D. says, but what he purposely excludes that shows his bias.
On many companies, he gives them zero credit for development assets or exploration success, leaves off other potential solutions on the table, and assumes we won’t ever get Silver back in the $30s or Gold back above $2000 (which is near-sighted and likely off-base). Lot’s of things change at higher prices that would position some of the worst cost producers far above the better cost producers as their margins will expand more on a percentage basis.
Lot’s of marginal projects that the sub-par producers hold in their project pipelines, will also shift to great projects at higher metals prices, trouncing the gains that can be had in the big juggernauts like Agnico or B2Gold that he likes so much. He’s good for finding the better performing companies in a correcting or tough metals price environment, but in a higher metals price environment, most of the companies he slams will outperform his favorites. I do agree with him on the set ups for both Calibre and Karora though.
Here’s a different take on Coeur from a different Seeking Alpha contributor (with 20,000 followers) that is less negatively-biased then Taylor, and a pretty sharp guy. Coeur had some challenges last year and so far this year, and the sector correction didn’t help, but they still did pretty good operationally this quarter… but were weak financially due to the lower metals prices compression.
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Coeur Mining: Decent Production This Quarter
Fun Trading – Aug. 20, 2022
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4535915-coeur-mining-decent-production-this-quarter
What happens with the discarded material from the XRT sorter which could have some value but is uneconomic with today’s processing techniques? Fifty years down the track it might become economic and some pot licker will want to revover it.