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Sun Silver

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September 18, 2024 at 8:10 AM (MDT)|Broadmoor Hotel & Resort

Gerard O'Donovan

Executive Director

Executive Director for Sun Silver (ASX:SS1)
Led development, commissioning & ramp up of Pilgangoora Lithium Tantalum Project as Project Manager for Pilbara Minerals (ASX:PLS) from 2016 to 2021
Led Integration of Altura acquisition into PLS business including restart & operations
Area Manager for Rio Winu Copper Gold Project in the Paterson Province of Western Australia
Non Executive Chair James Bay Minerals ASX:JBY
Previous MD & CEO of Battery Age Minerals (ASX:BM8)

This is an automatically generated transcript. Denver Gold Group cannot accept responsibility for mistakes, errors, omissions, or any action taken in reliance thereon. Use of this transcript is governed by Denver Gold Group’s Terms of Use.

Primary silver have, have the largest pre-production, primary silver deposit on the A sx and presenting is executive director Gerard o'donovan. Thanks Alex. Thanks everyone for coming out this morning. It gives me a great pleasure to present to you the, the Sun Silver story. Sun Silver is an Australian Stock Exchange listed company. We listed on the A SX only four months ago such as their standard disclaimer and important information. Please read that at your leisure. As Alex mentioned, we are the largest pre-production primary silver deposit on the A SX. We have a mineral resource of 423 million ounces of silver equivalent at a grade of 67.25 g per ton and we're located in the heart of the action in Elko County, Nevada. But we're not stopping there. We have continued growth potential. We're in the middle of a 7.5 1000 m drilling program which has intersected silver grades up to 521.25 g a ton with our most recent step out hole reported intersecting a wide high grade zone of 88 m at 80 g. A ton. Historical data reviews have also identified anomalous antimony throughout the project. I'll discuss that a little later. This is buoyed by a silver market which is rapidly depleting. and and so silver feels this is predominantly driven by industrial uses which I will touch on in a little later in the presentation. As I mentioned, Maverick Springs has a globally significant mineral resource. A silver gold project located in Elko County, Nevada. We have 423 million ounces of silver equivalent that contains 253 million ounces of pure silver at 40.25 g, a ton and 2 million ounces of gold. Our corporate summary, as I mentioned, we listed on the Australian Stock Exchange only four months ago. We raised $13 million at an issue price of 20 cents and we closed last night at 79.5 cent. We closed a capital raising yesterday where we raised an additional $13 million to complement the cash and bank of 6.25 and that was via a placement and a strategic investor. So we are well cashed up to progress this project and rapidly advance it through the development stage. Tightly held, register with the top 20 shareholders, predominantly consisting of management and holding over well 54% of the company and the vast majority of that is escrowed for 24 months. Our board management is development focused between us we have constructed 40 projects around the world myself and I was the project director for Pilbara Minerals when we successfully delivered the Pil Gora lithium tantalum project from, from first drill hole into production with just a little over three years. Dina Sego was a founding director and chief operating officer of Premera Group. Preme are known worldwide for the construction of operating processing plants. Nathan Mar is a metallurgist and Nathan has built two silver plants around the world and we're well supported and we've got great management on the ground. We're actively drilling right now and Robbie Anderson leads up a team of geologists at Maverick Springs. He has 17 years across all different types of mineral deposits in Nevada. And he has spent time at Newmont core and at Rochester Wood Core. So let's have a look at the project and where we're located. So we're 85 kilometers from Elko and Elko is a fantastic mining town and you know, obviously Nevada gold mines is in a prime position in and around Elko. And that and that has made it a fantastic place for us to go and operate geological setting is is very favorable, soft cabinet host rock at Maverick Springs and Nevada itself. I don't need to tell the crowd, but he has been ranked number one by the Fraser Institute in 2022 and has sat within the top three for the last five years. We're surrounded by notable peers. Ken Ross Barrack Core, Blackrock, as I said, we're in a AAA great jurisdiction for those who aren't really familiar with silver and looking at gold, obviously core in the region core have recently expanded their flagship asset at Rochester and they're operating at a head grade reported head grade of 12 g a ton. So if you compare that back to the 67.25 that we have at Maverick Springs and it's a great head grade that we're operating with. And just to give context, their cost applicable to sales reported was was 24 bucks announced, but they're obviously driving to bring that down with their recent expansions. Keen Ross's Ball Mountain mine is only 25 kilometers from Maverick Springs over the last two years, their reported head grid has been 0.4 g a ton of gold. And you know, our our head rate is 0.32 g of ton gold. Their cost applicable to sales reported is $1241. They're all in sustaining cost is around 900 bucks an ounce. So this these, these two examples just demonstrate what a what a great jurisdiction we're in and how the cost of mining is extremely cheap and makes for extremely profitable mines. looking more specifically at, at Maverick Springs. you know, we're, as I said, 85 kilometers from Elko can access site in an hour and 15 minutes. via road. We're on federal land. So we deal directly with the BLM. great, great infrastructure on site, well established roads, water, everything we need to explore right now and delving into the resource itself. So I mentioned we only listed four months ago on the A SX. And we've, we've been ra rapidly advancing the project. We've interrogated the technical data that we obtained as part of the acquisition. And as part of that, we recently announced a resource upgrade historically resource. The resource was constrained at 292 million ounces of silver equivalent that was calculated on metal pricing of $21.50 an ounce silver and 1850 an ounce gold. So we running the numbers and un constraining the resource. We've increased that to 423 million ounces of silver equivalent. And we're going to continue interrogating the resource to optimum the best development route. The resource itself is open in all directions and we are actively drilling outside of the resource. Our first seven holes have intersected silver mineralization in all seven holes which is thicker than the average thickness of the ore body and is higher grade than the current resource grade. And how have we succeeded in doing that? Well, as I mentioned, when we obtained all the historical data, we rewire framed, we reblocked the whole model and we started interrogating to identified high grade zones within the ore body and it drew our attention to a raft of different intercepts through the throughout the ore body which were, you know, over 100 g a ton and a lot over 50 m. But we were drawn specifically to the northwest of the property and I'll explain why. So for specific intercepts, 54 m at 303 g. A ton, 54 55 m at 278 g, a ton 100 m at 113 g. A ton 54 m at 142. So we were scratching our head and said something's going on in this location. We did a basic gram meter map. We overlaid it on the ore body and it essentially lit up like a Christmas tree in the Northwest section. Granted all this is happening only five weeks, post listing and post acquiring the asset. So we have a team of geologists who are working actively in the field. We got them on the ground and we carried out geophysics and we started mapping and carrying out geo chem. We utilize PXF technology to give us real time feedback so we can make quick snappy decisions to ensure that we progress the project and we identified anomalous so well. So outcrops and anomalous arsenic readings up to 1.4 kilometers from the resource boundary. Now elevated arsenic readings are obviously indicative and an indicator element for silver, gold mineralization in and around the Caroline region. So we defined target exploration areas. We quickly moved, we tendered a contract, we obtained a contractor out of Alco and we commenced or sea drilling seven weeks post listing. And as I mentioned in our first three holes, first three reported assay holes, we have intersected high grade thick silver. So 41 m at 126 g, a ton silver equivalent, 55 m at 80 g of ton silver equivalent. And that latest hole which is the most exciting hole because it's playing out quite wide and thick was 88 m at 80 g. A ton silver equivalent. And that hole ended in mineralization. So just for context, that's the cross section on the, on the right hand side of the screen. So we've had 100 100% success rate. We've proven our theory that the mineralization is, is a better grade than the resource and is thicker than the resource in that Northwest section. And we're continuing to step out. So we've stepped out 100 m outside the historical drilling. We're gonna step out another 100 m and we're gonna keep stepping out. And as long as we keep intersecting high grade silver intercepts and thicker intercepts, We feel we have, we're in a great position to again update the resource later in the year. I mentioned earlier that historically, this, this project was only acid for silver and gold obviously antimony has become a very topical subject over the last number of weeks due to the restrictions being put in place by the Chinese government on the, on the the export of antimony. And so we've gone back and we've assessed all the historical data, all the RC chips and core that's available to us within in our, in our storage facility and our core facility in Elco and all the historical drilling post 2008 has elevated levels of antimony. And we then went and we have grabbed a snapshot of the ore body. We have pulled out those RRC chips and core. We've tested them with the PXRF and we've defined a 1.3 kilometer trend with elevated antimony readings up to 1.3% so early days. But we're going to continue assessing the project to understand and quantify the amount of antimony within the project that that will support the Silver Gold Development project. As I mentioned, we have only assay three of the seven holes. We're, we're about to complete more holes as well. Talking to the GEOS this morning, we're about to TD on a hole as we speak. And we will then submit those to Reno for multi elemental assays. So we anticipate assays coming out over the coming weeks. So what's next in the field for us? Very simple. We're going to keep drilling, we're going to keep extensional drilling we've proven the theory that mineralization extends to the northwest and we plan to put several more holes into that region and we will then step back within the resource. We want to lift the classification of the resource as quickly as possible. The resource itself was, was previously approximately 30% of it was classified in the indicated R. But because we converted the resource from N I 43 101 across to the York Standard. As we're an a sex listed company, we have reported it as fully inferred. So for a low amount of capital, we will reinstate that resource. And how will we do that? We will do it by twinning some of the existing holes within that indicated area. We will verify geological confidence in the historical drilling and we will lift that resource and then we will continue drilling ourselves and we will continue to lift the vast majority of the resource to the indicated category. And we plan on executing that as part of our follow on drilling program. So why did we look at silver? Why do we believe silver is one of the hottest metals? Well, this graph, simple graph, it, it just demonstrates the massive silver deficit that's been growing over the last four years, 20% year on year. You know, with a, with a deficit of 184 million ounces in 2023 and, and the team behind Sun silver believes that that's primarily driven by two things. One is growing in industrial demand predominantly from, from solar usage. And two is the fact that existing mines are actually depleting in their supply. The reason being a lot of existing mines, silver can be a by product of polymetallic mines. So it's inelastic doesn't have the ability to scale up like other metals or minerals when the demand is there. So we are rapidly advancing a silver primary silver gold project in Nevada that we feel could feed this demand. And solar I mentioned is the primary driver or belief it has grown. you know, 380% since 2014. The demand for silver within solar. I was on site last week, I drove from Elco to here. There was two things I could see which which makes me really happy every time. It's, it's a vast amount of mining activity and it's a lot of solar fields. And so maintaining the current trajectory of solar panel manufacturing, it could require up to 98% of global silver reserves by 2050 that would essentially wipe out above and below ground reserves. And as I said, that deficit in 184 million ounces in 2023 was the third year and it's forecast to grow significantly in 2024. And the United States where we are has set its own targets with respect to the utilization of solar within its electrical grid. They've targeted 30% by 2030. It was 3% last year. So that's 100 and 25 gigawatts of additional capacity year on year by 2030. So it's, it's pretty simple that silver is the most critical metal opposing price and supply risks in the build out of this global solar thematic. But we're also looking at some parallel streams within our business. So for, for people who don't know silver is used within the solar panel as a solar, as a silver paste. It's a key component and predominantly comes from China. So China has the the the silver component or the PV componentry supply chain wrapped up with over 90% of PV cells manufactured in China. The Trump administration intro or introduced a 25% tariff on solar imports from China when they were in power and that was in June this year increased by the Biden administration to 50%. So there's a significant tariff on the import of all solar componentry into China. So what are sun silver doing about it? Well, we're actually looking at the construction of a silver based manufacturing facility within the United States at site. We submitted a, a $60 million grant funding application via an investment tax or via the section 48 in conjunction with Holland and Knight, who were very successful in obtaining grants for the likes of NAVOI CIA and Piedmont. And we've kicked off technological study with wood group who were known worldwide to investigate the production of that silver paste within the United States. So, as I said, it's, it's been a pretty rapid journey since we listed four months ago. And we have achieved some significant goals, but we feel we are only getting started just to reiterate we listed at 20 cent. we closed yesterday on the A sx at 79.5 cent, we've just put $13 million in the bank to support our existing cash balance of 6.5 million. So how are we going to deploy that? Well, we're going to continue resource growth activities through extensional drilling. We're going to bring more rigs in and we're going to step back into the resource to lift the classification of that resource as quickly as possible to the indicated category. And we are going to commence a comprehensive Met test work program to build on the positive Met test work that was completed previously and we will be rolling that out later this year and early next year. And we'll continue with our investigations around silver paste and antimony and also investigate the opportunities from grant funding from the likes of the Department of Energy and the Department of Defense and to support the development of our project and further investigation of those particular minerals and elements. So Thank you for your time. I appreciate it. Early on Wednesday morning of what has been a fantastic conference. So thank you for coming and listening to the story. We feel we are only getting started And we feel we are underpinned by a fantastic asset. So thank you for your time. Oh, thanks Gerard. We'd have some time for some questions. If there's any from the floor, I I might start then. You, you mentioned there could be a, a resource update coming in later this year. Is there going to be potentially any of that extensional drilling coming through in that update or is it mostly sort of infill at this point? No, it will be all the extensional drilling is what we will be targeting to bring into the resource. It's as I said, it's, it's, it's higher grade than the existing resource and it's thicker. So it would be a significant upgrade to the existing resource. So we're, we're going to continue drilling and we'll quantify that. Yes. Thank you. The question on the fundamentals of the silver market. What are you hearing regarding stress on the physical side of the silver market? How desperate our end users to get our hands on silver? Yeah, it's, it's a really good question. I suppose we can just look at some of the activities by some of the major countries over the last few months. And if you look at India for example, they've been rapidly acquiring silver. I think in the last quarter, China has imported more silver than it has in recent times. So it's, it's, it's evident that there is stress on physical as well. And, and, and, and, and that's just some observations we've seen within the market. Hi, Gerard quick one for me, realistically. What's the timeline to production? When can we see you digging the stuff out of the ground? Yeah, so I I mentioned earlier, we're advancing this as quickly as possible. So there's a number of streams that we're doing. We're, we're going to run the technical stream and the approval stream in parallel with each other. So we'll look at commencing baseline environmental studies later this year. And we'd be targeting, you know, a couple of years, if not a little longer, but that that would be the target and we've obviously got a major resource. So we're going to step back in and start defining that and carry out the mid test work and the fundamental studies and run the approval stream in parallel. We are on federal land as well. So we have a well documented route for approvals just a short bit of time left. So I might have a quick addendum there. It might be a bit early but the the silver paste and the antimony, I don't know if that helps the permitting process and, and through your timeline onshore, but obviously antimony has been moved up as you know, the number one critical mineral from a, from a, a safety perspective. And so, you know, we look at some others who have been successful in grant funding like perpetua resources and other groups who have got significant government backing. So we're, as I said, we're investigating those opportunities. We've engaged with Holland and Knight and we will discuss with the relevant bodies within government to, to understand. Is there assistance available? Thanks very much. Thank you.


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