The Mexican federal government has mandated that all non-essential businesses, including mining, temporarily suspend operations until April 30 due to the COVID-19 virus. This will impact a number of operations (especially silver), although those with heap leach operations will continue, albeit at lower production rates. This could have material impacts (should the shutdown extend beyond end of April) on those companies without weaker balance sheets.
As a result of this, a large number of…
Following Part I of this piece, which highlighted three of six “next generation silver producers”, we will focus this piece on the next three, which include SilverCrest Metals, Alexco Resources, and Aurcana. The latter two don’t have tier-I silver asset but are very high grade and this group has an an all-in sustaining cost profile (AISC) in the bottom 50% on the industry cost curve, with SilverCrest and Aurcana having an AISC profile in the lowest quartile. Unlike Part I, whereby one company…
Due to government mandated shutdowns of select businesses and in this case, mining, in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, there has been rather limited news flow except that related to temporarily suspending mining operations. It is important to note those companies which have temporarily placed operations on care and maintenance (C&M) will see cash outflows from those assets as C&M cost money. Strong balance sheets and available liquidity are imperative given the current market uncertainty.
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While there are a dearth of primary silver producers and even fewer quality companies, the same can’t be said of the next generation of primary silver producers. With the exception of Pan-American, Hochschild, Hecla, Fortuna, Fresnillo and arguably First Majestic Silver, there are essentially only a couple to no other high-quality primary silver producers (meaning no other companies derive at least 65% of total revenue from silver-equivalent production (silver and gold) and at least 40%-45% +/-…
While there are a dearth of primary silver producers and even fewer quality companies, the same can’t be said of the next generation of primary silver producers. With the exception of Pan-American, Hochschild, Hecla, Fortuna, Fresnillo and arguably First Majestic Silver, there are essentially only a couple to no other high-quality primary silver producers (meaning no other companies derive at least 65% of total revenue from silver-equivalent production (silver and gold) and at least 40%-45% +/-…
Endeavour Silver: Things are going from bad to worse for the higher-cost silver producer. In 2019, the company announced its El Cubo mine (which was its most profitable operation for a couple years) had become depletes of mineral reserves and it would be winding down operations until the company could drill out additional resources. This lowered output and caused an increase in companywide all-in sustaining costs (AISC). Further, due to heavy selling in silver and the company’s all-in cost…
$USA $EDV.to $EQX.to $FSM $FNV $WPM $KGC $MAX.to $OSK.to $PVG $NVO.V | America’s Gold and Silver Corp: Reported FY 2019 production of 5.8m AgEq oz, though only 1.2m oz. of that was actual silver ounces, the rest being base metals converted to silver equivalent. 2019 was a transition year for the company as it recapitalized and entered into a JV agreement with Eric Sprott for its Galena Complex. Having visited the site a couple times over the years, it is a solid smaller silver operation but…
Aurcana: Increased the previously announced non-brokered private placement from $4m to $5.76m and completed the second tranche. This will go toward underground development (and in turn, reducing cap-ex) to bring its principle asset (Revenue-Virginius) into production and ideally, the remaining capital investment will be funded via debt or at least in large part. While it is difficult to generate positive operating cash flow in the current silver price environment, due to the higher grade nature…
Companies covered in this weekly review:
$BTG $KOR.TO $EDV.TO $GCM.TO $MAG $SKE.V $AUY
MAG Silver: Construction of the world class Juanicipio silver project continues to progress. The underground mine will commence production ahead of schedule in mid-2020. Over 25km of underground development has been completed to date. There are slight capital-cost over-runs relative to the January 2018 estimate, now estimated at $440m ($194m attributable to MAG). The ramp up will take some time on this…
Silver is still in consolidation mode since early September, but it appears ready to rally over a sustained period of time.Below, is a chart of silver:On the chart there appears to have formed some fractals. The current one has also broken out at the black line recently (just after point C).As expected, price survived the test of the 50-day moving average, and is looking really bullish.If the comparison remains valid, then we can expect a massive rally over the coming months.This is consistent…
