Hello and welcome to the K.E.Report.I'm your host, Chad Markowitz, and we're getting an update today from Peter Kraut, author of the book The Great Silver Bull and editor of the Silver Stock Investor Newsletter.
And we'll put a link to the Silver Stock Investor Newsletter down below so you can follow along with Peter's work.And Peter, always great having you on the show to talk about all things silver.
As far as I know, you're still the only newsletter writer and author strictly addressing silver in the space and addressing it from the standpoint of the macro side of things, what affects the gold and silver markets, the physical side of it, investing in physical silver or ETFs and digital silver, all the way down into the various levels of mining equities exposed to silver.
It's always fun to dive into these conversations together.And I guess let's maybe start it off with the macro side of things.We've had a couple of big events just this week.And even today, we've got something big going on with the China easing.
So we've had an election in the US.We've had the Fed cut rates again.What are your key takeaways on the macro side of things after a pretty wild week?
Yeah, so we'll kind of touch on the first, the main one, obviously, the election.And so for me, I think the big takeaways there are it didn't matter for the most part who ended up taking over the White House.
It's pretty clear if you follow what's going on and what's likely to continue happening is that either way, whoever's there, we're going to end up with growing deficits, growing debt.
I feel ongoing elevated inflation and probably rising inflation actually once again next year, although technically it's been falling.It's still relatively elevated and I think it'll return to rising again sometime next year.
So, these are all positives as far as I'm concerned for silver.
And then, now that we know that it's Trump who will be in and he is an advocate for at least oil and gas drilling, he's also, I think, arguably an advocate for mining as well in terms of resources, etc.
and probably deregulating to some extent at least or to streamlining the mining industry.So I think that's a positive that will help the miners and encourage and probably stimulate, if anything, projects that are US-based.
So I think those are positives, again, for silver and for the miners. And then if we look at what else has happened, well there was the predicted Fed rate cut which took place this week and so that's a quarter point again as expected.
You know, interesting to me because as I say inflation levels stay elevated and yet they're cutting.
I think odds are still pretty good that we're going to hit a recession and I think that odds are that's going to happen perhaps in the first quarter next year.
If you look at what has happened the last couple of times when the Fed started cutting rates within three to four months you had a recession start.There's a bit of a lag in terms of you know when they start cutting and when the recessions hit.
Obviously they raise rates They start the rate hiking cycle because they figure that things have gotten a little too hot, unemployment's too low, etc, etc.And so they eventually end up in the rate cutting cycle.
And as I say, about three or four months in, on average, is when you start to see an official recession kick in.So that's why I say, potentially even before the end of this year, I think it's possible by sometime in December.
If not, I think early to mid Q1 we're likely to see that happen. The implications from what I've seen and what I expect are that it will be, it could be actually because it's got a large industrial component, it could be somewhat negative.
I think that will mostly be sentiment wise.I think it will turn out that the demand from the industrial side really will not end up backing off all that much.So if you see a pullback in silver because of recession,
either concerns or because it's official we're in one, I'd look at that, perhaps not react immediately, watch for it to look like it's bottoming, but that will be to me an absolute opportunity to get into silver and we can talk about the reasons for that as well.
Well, let's dig into the hybrid nature of silver.I mean, we have talked about this before that.Yes, it's a precious metal.Yes, it's an industrial metal.
I think it's a 60 40 split or something close to that, where it's 60 percent industrial, 40 percent precious.But a lot of people have made the point that what really moves the.
Prices, you know, the tail wagging the dog is the futures pricing kind of moving the physical around more so than just the pure supply-demand fundamentals.Same thing with gold.And so same thing with a lot of commodities, really same thing with oil.
So when you look at it, a lot of times the futures market will be moved around by what's happening as far as sentiment.It's what's happening as far as gold.Does it track with it?You know, is it a positive for the precious metal sector overall?
So do you think that if gold kicks it back into gear.It's kind of correcting right now, too.But do you think if it starts its trajectory higher again, that it drags silver up regardless of if we have a recession?
Or do you think if we had that economic contraction, that that would just overwhelm the supply-demand fundamentals and still drag silver down, even if gold is moving higher?
So I would expect, like I was saying initially, probably some softness in terms of the upward price movement for silver.Now that could, for me, take two forms.It could be that it moves down.
But it could also be that gold does pull it higher, just perhaps not with the normal leverage that it would usually have just because of its industrial aspects.And I still think that most of the, let's say, softness, whether it's
somewhat downward or even somewhat upward, but with less leverage than usual, that so-called softness may be only perception and sentiment and not actual demand.
In other words, people will be concerned and perhaps not buy it as aggressively or actually sell it somewhat for those concerns.
And when we end up looking back, and that's why I think it'll be an opportunity, when we look back, maybe it takes a quarter, maybe it takes a couple of quarters, and we'll look back and we'll see, oh, wow, demand really was not hurt that much.
And that's why I think it'll end up being an opportunity.And the reason I say that is, you mentioned it before, Silver is now 60% industrial demand versus 40% investment.
Just a few years ago it was 50-50 and I see that continuing to rise so the industrial demand seems to be taking on more importance.That can change quite quickly if you have in one year an outsized investment demand.
That can really shift the balance again. more towards even but I like to look at the numbers purely as the 50 50 and then the 60 40 is is based on just on demand but if you take those pure numbers for the number of ounces in each case and
put them against the actual supply.So let's forget about this secondary above ground supply that the consumers can tap into, whether they're industrial or investment.
Because there is this above ground supply that we've talked about in the past that I believe we've seen.
We've seen by looking at the futures markets, those above ground supplies continue to be drained and there's a limit to where that's going to go because they'll eventually will eventually get drawn down completely.
If you just compare the actual demand to the actual supply, which when I say actual I mean from mining and recycling every year, that's a billion ounces whereas demand is 1.2 billion ounces.
So if you compare let's say industrial to mining and recycling supplies, what is actually being brought to market every year, The forecast for this year is that industrial will actually be somewhere closer to 70%.
So what I find really interesting about that is that leaves 30% for investment demand.If investment demand comes roaring back, as it does do, it ebbs and flows, and as it does do from time to time every few years, that could really overwhelm supply.
and I think could really be a wild card that will create a new squeeze in silver and just push it considerably higher.
So as industrial sort of squeezes out investment, when investment comes roaring back, like I say, that could really create some fireworks in the silver market.
Well, I'd like to dig into the actual supply-demand fundamentals just a little further with a question that I don't think I've even asked anybody else, Peter, but we had a guest on the show and he was mentioning that when people talk about the silver supply deficit, they always include
investor demand in there and they really shouldn't because on a commodities basis, you should base it purely on the supply demand for the commodity itself in manufacturing and in the industrial side.
But then out of the other side of their mouth, they also said, hey, it's a 60-40 split.So I'm curious
why wouldn't we figure in investment demand as part of that demand because he said all of the supply deficit figures he sees online are phony baloney and the reason he's saying that is because there's something called dummy variables where if somebody says well i think investment demand is this much and somebody else says well i think it's this much you can actually throw a lot larger number up for marketing purposes saying oh wow look at this deficit but i'm still stunned that
we wouldn't include investment demand as part of the supply-demand picture when it's such a huge part.
Whether it's 40% or 30%, or if it grows back to 50%, that's still something soaking up a lot of the physical bars and coins, whether they're buying it from a mint or buying it from different dealers.
That's also soaking things up in ETFs, and that's also soaking things up as far as the futures contracts like we talked about.So should investor demand be considered part of demand?
Well, I can tell you that in my case, it is.I do consider it as part of demand.You know, everyone will take their own approach and for their own reasons, but despite the fact that it ebbs and flows a lot, it is there and it's very
very, very much present.If I look at the numbers for physical investment demand, and frankly, this ignores jewelry and silverware.
Personally, what I do is I include jewelry and silverware along with bars and coins to make up physical demand, or I should say investment demand. Those are all physical silver requirements for each of those three, jewelry, silverware and investment.
So just investment demand, if I look back, let's say at 2020, so we had COVID that year, that was 200 million ounces, that was 20%.Then in 2021, 284 million ounces. 28%.When I say percent, I'm talking about supply.
I'm ignoring what is available in secondary supplies.When I quote percentages, I'm quoting it against what the market was able to produce from mining and recycling that year.This is actually something that's worth mentioning.
Supply, when you look at what is made available to the market every year, is almost unchanged in the past decade.And yet Total demand has gone from a billion ounces as recently as 2021 to 1.2 billion ounces this year and last year.
So we're requiring 20% more than we're able to bring to market.The Silver Institute, through Metalsfocus that does the research for them, has said that they don't expect any increase in mine supply or even recycling overall.
So in other words, nothing meaningful past a billion ounces for the next several years.And yet we know that overall demand has been increasing and that, as I say, we're at a 20% deficit each year for the past three years.
If you look at the projections for what's coming from mining, there's actually an expectation by the Silver Institute that overall supply from mining and recycling is actually going to fall this year.
Not only is the silver supply flat, it's actually falling in the face of rising demand. If you look at some interesting research from S&P Global, they looked at what we call primary silver mines.
So just for your listeners, what's interesting to note is that only about a quarter of silver, mined silver, comes from silver mines. The rest of it comes as a byproduct from mining gold, copper, lead, and zinc.
So 75% of mined silver depends on actually mining other metals. That's a quirk that you don't have in other metals.And S&P Global looked at projections for silver from primary silver mines and they see that peaking in two years.
They think in 2026 that's actually going to reach a new high or slightly higher than what we have right now and is going to start falling from that point forward.
So the outlook for silver supply from mining and recycling is not very rosy, and yet total demand is high, remains high, and actually is projected to grow.
So the Silver Institute thinks that we're going to see over the next five years, we're going to see two things. We're going to see new record deficits and we're going to see these deficits continue to be met from these secondary supplies.
So, I mean, you could hardly ask for a more bullish outlook for the silver market.I mean, it's just I mean, I hate to say it, but it's almost ideal.There is something I came across that I think
I've mentioned a few times when I do presentations on silver, and there's a group out of New York City called Gehring and Rosenzweig.And Gehring is Lei Gehring, and he used to manage the world's largest commodities fund.
has been very, very successful with that.It did very well.And he looks at a number of commodities constantly.He's been investing in many of them, does fantastic research.
And he put out something recently, an interesting quote that I think is very, very appropriate for the silver market right now. And so he said, this is on uranium.
So he said recently, five years ago, we became uranium bulls, because the market had quietly slipped into a structural deficit.And reactor demand had begun outstripping mine supply.
They saw that fuel buyers were using so-called secondary supplies to fill the gap.Now, I'll ask you Shad, how does that sound when we think about what we were just talking about in silver?
And I think you've made the case before that silver is the new uranium bull market because I was very familiar with that move in uranium, followed it very closely, investing about 10 different uranium stocks for the exact same reasons.
They were mopping up secondary supply because there wasn't enough primary supply.Well, if silver is the exact same thing where we're depending on secondary supply from base metals mining or recycling or above ground
stockpiles to meet the growing demand, then there's not enough primary supply.So it sounds like the exact same thing to me.
Exactly.And so, I mean, when I saw that quote, I thought to myself, like, this is a perfect one sentence or two sentence explanation for what's going on in the silver market.And it's a perfect parallel.And so, more importantly,
So if you understand the first part, which is the setup, the second part is what happened in uranium.Well, if you look back about three years, it was trading at twenty three dollars a pound.
It's currently around eighty one or eighty three dollars a pound.So and the move was quick and it has not backed off.And so this is the kind of thing I personally expect is going to happen in the silver market.
The market is going to have to come to terms with this ongoing deficit and the mining side of it being just clearly unable to react and provide more supply to help meet that demand.Now, there's always the argument that
And this is the one sort of big difference from the uranium market is that, well, I'm pretty sure there are no private hordes of uranium, but it's kind of hard to in your basement or in your backyard.So obviously there are utilities.
There are miners like Cameco, for example, and there are a few others that have the ability and the means to sit on supplies that are stored safely, etc.and that can be drawn down.And that's what has happened in uranium.Those supplies were tapped.
But in silver, and those were quantifiable, It was much easier to go back and look at mostly public companies and utilities and what they may have had in storage, etc.Now, in silver, it's harder to quantify because silver is more widespread.
It's not radioactive.So people own silver, have been owning it for hundreds and thousands of years, sit on it.So we've got these private hordes.
And so the argument and the difference in silver in the silver market is, well, OK, if you get to that point, A lot of silver may come to market from these private hordes and help fill the gap.Well, that's true.I will concede that point.
What I will ask, though, is at what price?And that's what makes the difference.At what price, given the kind of environment that we're in, geopolitically, economically, etc., are people willing to part with their silver to help fill the gap?
And my argument is that it's or my sense of it is that it's at much, much, much higher prices that you're going to see some of that silver come to market.
So, you know, if that's the case, then that portends a very, very strong silver bull market going forward.So, you know, the perils are there.There are some important differences, but that's kind of how I see that potentially playing out.
Yeah, I think it's going to be interesting to watch what happens if the silver price does finally make a run towards its all-time high around $50 that it hit in 1980 and hit again very close to that in 2011.
Does that bring on some of that private hoard action or does it take even higher prices in the 60s or 70s?Would that finally be what it takes in the interim?
companies that can extract silver from the ground economically in the 30s will have quite a ride into the 40s and 50s if that were to play out.Let's talk about producers.Let's talk about what's available.
As you mentioned, a lot of the production isn't even coming from primary silver companies.
So when people want to invest in silver equities, they're really picking companies that may have silver in their name or maybe thought of as silver companies, but have actually become gold companies.
They actually have more gold than silver now, or they're base metals companies with zinc, lead and maybe some copper, and then a silver credit.
There's very few companies that are just totally precious metals only, and even then, again, they gear more towards gold.There are a few that were silver focused, and they've been taken out.
We talked last time about Gatos being taken over by First Majestic, but we also saw Silvercrest
taken over by core mining i don't think we've talked about that yet and those were two of the larger single asset primary silver producers i can only think of two that are left that are not owned by the big boys and that would be aya gold and silver and mag silver and so
What does that leave investors with now, Peter?And I would also add that Silvercrest was the only company doing what the uranium companies were doing and actually holding silver on its balance sheet.
I haven't seen any other companies doing that except for a while.First Majestic did for a quarter or two.But should more precious metals companies hold metal in reserves to kind of stop
or like mop up the supply and release it strategically at higher prices?Is that better than holding cash?And what are investors left with for primary silver producers that aren't larger companies?
So you're right.Absolutely.It's true that you've got basically two really good primary silver producers that are essentially quote unquote disappearing in the sense that they're being taken over.Their assets will end up with other producers.
So you've got First Majestic taking over Gatos.You've got Kerr taking over Silvercrest. Now, you mentioned, of course, Silvercrest being the one that's known to be holding silver bullion in its treasury.And so what are investors supposed to do?
Well, what I think is that it just makes those producers that have taken over those assets, in my view, more attractive because both First Majestic and Kerr had lower overall silver production, silver revenues.
This now brings them both closer to about, I think it's 45% revenues from silver, which is unlike AYA and MAG, which you mentioned, which are basically almost all.
In the case of AYA, it's all, I believe, and MAG, I think it's almost all silver productions or silver revenues.So that's just a quirk of the industry.Some large producers of silver
really are not, although they may produce a lot of silver, they're not primary in my view.
I'm being relatively generous just because that's what the market is, but my filter is typically at or close to 40% silver revenues if they're a producer or silver content if they are a developer or an explorer that has a deposit.
So, it shrinks the options for investors and this is, as I say, something that I do in my newsletter.
I focus on the producers and the explorers whose silver is typically at least 40% because you're really not investing, in my view, in a silver company if you're somewhere below that.
That, I think, may even change in terms of being towards silver's favour as this market progresses because I think that this gold-silver ratio will come down, meaning silver will gain versus gold in terms of value and therefore the revenues from these companies or the holdings of silver versus gold, let's say, will rise and their revenues or their holdings will become more silver-rich, so to speak.
So, yeah, I mean, those are my thoughts.I think that maybe one last point is that I'm very, very supportive of what Silvercrest has been doing and their reasons.
I've spoken to them about what they're doing and why they do it to hold some physical silver in their treasury.
A lot of it is that, you know, people will invest in these companies because they are, to some extent, to a large extent, inflation hedges because they produce precious metals.
and their goal should be, if they're producers, to help provide inflation protection.If their primary product is silver or gold, why would you not keep some?
It's one thing if you're a developer, you need the cash to some extent to grow your business. and to become a larger and more profitable producer.
But once you're there, I certainly think that if you're positive net cash flowing, you should be keeping a portion of that cash flow in the middle.Unless you have an excellent project that you can take that cash and you can say,
Really, this should be going back into the ground because we have this tremendous top quality project that is going to ultimately help us produce even more gold or silver at low cost, safely, with great margins, etc.
Then it makes sense to hold that metal.It really does.You're providing, as I say, inflation protection and you're really kind of walking the walk, I guess, is the way I see it.
Well, and I want to dig into another aspect of the producers, and that is, there's a really good friend of mine and a newsletter writer who I will not name, but his whole thesis when he's doing write-ups for the companies to his subscribers is, is this a takeover candidate?
And I've had an ongoing dialogue with him for a while.I said, well, hey, often,
The companies that move the most in a bull market, especially silver companies, because there's not that many of them, are actually the companies that aren't the best producers, they're not the biggest companies, and they're also probably not takeover candidates because they have a collection of either single asset or a handful of smaller mines, smaller production profiles.
So some investors will snub their nose at it.And I know that there's some investors that think, you know, well, Small mines have all the same challenges as big mines, but they don't have the big mine to bail them out.
But the reality is every time we've seen a bull market run, whether it's the 2001 through 2011 period, the 2016 rip hire, the 2018 through 2019 period, the 2020 post-COVID run, every time, even recently when we've seen some of these short bursts for a couple months of silver,
It's the small single asset and the multi-asset producers that really rip hired.I'm just going to rattle a couple off real quick.We don't have to talk about all of them.
But just to throw out there, there's not that many of these companies in the field.
You've got companies like Endeavor Silver, Impact Silver, Santa Cruz Silver, Avena Silver and Gold, Guanajuato Silver, Sierra Madre is a new one, Andean Precious Metals.
America's gold and silver, Silver X, and you could argue that Luca Mining and Go Gold will be producing silver along with their gold.So there's that.I mean, that's the whole field of these companies.
But a lot of times those are the companies that outperform the rest.Are you open to positioning in smaller mines or a collection of smaller mines, even though they're probably not best in class or a takeover candidate?
Yes, the answer is yes.And the reason is basically what you were saying, is that in a strong enough bull market, they're going to rip higher.
And the bottom line reason for that is because they, let's say, because they have more challenges or they don't have the absolute best minds, their profit margins may be lower.
However, that becomes an advantage when the underlying metals price rips higher because it provides more leverage.Let's say silver is, for argument's sake, just to make things easy, at $40 and it costs $20 to produce an ounce of silver.
for a more profitable producer.Then you've got one of these smaller ones that is averaging a cost of $30.They're making half the margin of the more efficient producer.
What happens when the price goes from $40 to $50 is that on a percentage basis, the increase for the less efficient silver producer will lower profit. is actually higher.
So the gains, the percentage gains, the addition to their bottom line to their profit on their each ounce of silver is actually a bigger gain percentage wise than it is for the more efficient silver producer.
Anybody can do the math, take a piece of paper and a pen and work this out, you'll see what I mean. And use those numbers, it's pretty straightforward.But I think that's why.
I think it's the leverage that you get when you have a less profitable producer.And so, I mean, I'm not saying go out and buy everything.I certainly avoid trying.There's some junk out there as well.
You want to try and stick still with the better quality management, the better quality mines, etc.And even if they are lower profit, they will absolutely leverage higher on the silver price gains.
So it's absolutely something that you want to have some exposure to.I think it's a great approach.
Well, out of that crop of characters, maybe not the biggest ones, so we're not talking about the Pan-Americans and the First Majestics, or now Core will be one of the biggest ones, or the Hecla's, but out of that smaller batch, is there one or two that really stick out to you as quality management, or maybe projects that'll have that leverage?
Yeah, I mean, for example, I think one of the ones you mentioned was Endeavor.I like them because they are one already, their silver content is high in terms of overall production.I think they're somewhere over 60% silver revenues.
They're actually because of an advanced project called Terranera in Mexico.
They're actually close to, once that's up and running and at full commercial production, that will nearly double their overall silver equivalent output, and that's a silver-rich mine itself as well.I like that.It's got good trading volumes.
It's going to be quite profitable as well. well run and so I think that's one to look at.If we're talking about maybe some on the smaller side, you mentioned Guanajuato.I like that as well.I've been out there and actually visited them.
They have been pretty aggressive growing their business. They've been acquiring, they bought assets from Great Panther.They actually got quite the deal, I believe, on that.And I think that's also very well run.
I'd like to see that progress in terms of growing their output.But they're doing a lot of things on the technology side as well to find ways to, I guess, streamline and improve the bottom line profit-wise by really investing well.
They're doing some constant exploration as well alongside that.I think that's another one that people should look at in terms of smaller producers.The list is not long.I think those are a couple of good ones to chew on.You mentioned Sierra.
They're actually as well sort of ramping up their production right now.I like them a lot.I guess that kind of maybe rounds it out for the time being.
OK, and then if we want to round things out here, we also have to look at where will the next silver mines come from?What development projects, what companies that are the current crop of best in class developers really have your attention?
Again, I can think of probably a dozen companies or so in this field that actually have resources defined and maybe an economic study out. like a PEA or a PFS.
So out of that crop of companies, are there any assets that you feel like, hey, this is a quality asset, this is a future mine, they could be a takeover candidate, or maybe they're going to build it themselves?
Any of the names that jump out to you, Peter?
Yes, I would consider Golgold Resources.They have their Los Ricos project in Mexico.This is going to be an underground mine.
I don't have concerns with that given that there's still some uncertainty around the open pit mining in terms of new licenses in Mexico.But this has actually been reworked to be a very profitable underground mine.
I think that that's going to move forward in the next few quarters probably as well.So I like that a lot.And then you've got a company operating in Bolivia, New Pacific.Now, I used to be a lot more reticent when it comes to Bolivia.
However, I've gotten gradually more comfortable What I will say is that a couple of things I like about New Pacific is that they have been there for a while.They've made some great discoveries.
They have one project, a rarity, their Silver Sand project, which is a pure silver, almost unheard of.High grade, close to surface, that one day I'm pretty certain will be a mine.
They've got another project called Carangas, which is more of a polymetallic but still high silver content. That may actually be the first project that eventually comes to production.
My personal view is that project may actually end up being sold to someone. that will bring that into production.And that is, both of those are in Bolivia.New Pacific has someone from Pan American on their board.
And so certainly advising them and that to me is additional comfort.Pan American has been operating in Bolivia for about 20 years quite successfully.
And so, you know, I guess an easy way to put it is that for me, Bolivia is maybe 10 to 15 years ahead of Peru and Chile. which has actually been kind of calming down in terms of rhetoric, to be fair, lately.
But they've been a bit more of a source of concern.I guess it depends on where within those countries as well.But I just feel like Bolivia has sort of tried the kinds of things that Chile and Peru have tried in the last few years.
And they've seen the consequences.So they've become just basically more mining friendly.And so I do feel, as I say, relatively comfortable with the projects within Bolivia.There's a way of
of acquiring and advancing and permitting projects in Bolivia.There's some quirks and so on that need to be addressed.
But without getting into those details, I can tell you that my knowledge of and understanding of the approach that New Pacific is taking with that is actually the right way.I think that they will be successful with these projects.
What's interesting about Bolivia is because of the political concerns that it has carried for some time, it's relatively underexplored.I think that's one of the reasons that New Pacific has been able to go there and make some big discoveries.
So definitely one to watch as well.Advancing, as I say, towards bringing a project to production.
All right.Well, I appreciate you sharing both GoGold and New Pacific as two developers on your radar.Let's end it with DrillPlace.
Is there any exploration company in the silver space, maybe one or two, that have an exciting program going on right now?I know there's a lot.
There's probably a couple dozen companies, but just one or two that have your attention on the silver exploration side.
Yes, so one is Silver Wolf that's in Mexico as well.This was a project that was actually spun out of Aveeno Silver, which had been with them for a long time.Peter Latta is spearheading this company.He's
He's been with Avino Silver for quite some time, so there's still that connection there.They have access to lower-cost drilling because of it, so they have an advantage.
This is a project that was consolidated and has not seen modern exploration for a long time.
I think really it's definitely a riskier play, but because this is drilling, this is a play that has never seen drilling and has actually started to see the drilling.We haven't seen results yet.
So if that's positive, I think we could see a jump that's already moved considerably in the last couple of months.So I think that the market is certainly seeing some strong potential there. The other one that I like a lot is Argenta.
So, Argenta is part of the Fiori group, which is Frank Giustra, Sean Coon-Coon, Sean being behind Dolly Varden, which your listeners may know of, that has had some really good success in the Golden Triangle in BC, has had some spectacular results recently.
So, Argenta is a project that was brought to them by a geologist from Dali Barton who himself Joaquin Marias is from Argentina.He'd been watching this project that Barrick had an option on which was held by Golden Minerals.
Barrick was drilling it but Barrick's option was for gold only.Barrick started to drill it, had some mediocre results when it came to gold and eventually gave it back to Golden Minerals because
they didn't want to bother with doing anything further with it.It was just not exciting enough.But the silver is tremendous.When Joaquin saw that the project went back to gold and minerals, he immediately jumped on it
told Fiori Group, listen, you need to look at this, this is fantastic.We're talking about in Salta province, northern Salta.This is already an existing resource of over 50 million ounces of silver.
It's high-grade, it's over 400 grams per tonne silver.This is their first project. Great backing.It only came to market a couple of weeks ago.It was private until then.They used a shell to bring it to market.I really like this one.
They've stated publicly that they're going to grow this into a Latin American silver explorer, potentially producer.We don't know yet.It's one I like.Argentina has really, as your listeners probably know and as you know, flipped in the last 6 months.
from a basket case to considerably less of a basket case economically.Millais, who's the new president, has done some tremendous things in a very short time, and he's brought some programs that are very, very conducive to mining and to business.
We can maybe go into those details another time, but let's just say that he's brought some very positive programs to the business sector.Mining should benefit from that completely.I really like Argenta.It's one to look at.
All right, I really appreciate you sharing both those.And yes, we have covered some of those changes in Argentina law on some of the episodes we've done with Abrasilver, also operating in Argentina.
And if people want to go find those on our show, we do a deep dive into the RIGI, the new law that was passed that helps development companies export duties are reduced down to zero by year three.The tax situation's improved.
So definitely, and both Bolivia and Argentina that we mentioned in this call, Peter, are jurisdictions on the increase that are actually changing in a positive way.
Can't say that about every jurisdiction, but I really appreciate you breaking down all the companies you shared.There's so many more that you follow in your newsletter.
And if people want to follow along with Peter's work, definitely click on the link below this.It takes you over to Peter's newsletter, The Silver Stock Investor.And as always, Peter, looking forward to our next conversation.
It's been a pleasure, Chad.I always enjoy it.And thanks for the time.I truly appreciate it.
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