2026 Metals Mania

0:04 Good morning, good afternoon or good evening, depending on where in the world you're signing in from today. I think almost all time zones are represented in our fairly large audience, so I appreciate everybody for joining me. I'm pretty excited. I've got a pretty elite panel with me today to discuss the never-ending drama of metals prices, how they impact mining securities. So I've got JT Starzycki, Executive Chairman of Guardian Metal Resources, Vincent Metcalfe, President and CEO of Picoi Copper. I got Sean Koon Koon, President of Contango Silver and Gold and Christian Aramayo, COO of Kuya Silvers. We've got a lot of metals represented today. Should be a very good conversation. So here's how today is going to work. It's kind of a loose structure for a conversation to get to the bottom of metals prices. But I'll also give each company an opportunity to speak to their projects. Now, that being said, I don't think we're going to have time today for questions about individual securities. So I'll just note everybody in the chat, you can feel free to ask questions, and I will pass them through to the teams afterwards. But it's likely we won't actually cover them during today's events, just for your reference.

1:02 But if there is a commentary in the chat that does speak to the conversation we're having, I'll try and work it in where I can, and so we'll be able to incorporate some of that commentary as much as possible. The other thing I'll say is today's event is being recorded and will be available for replay, likely in the early afternoon Eastern time. It'll be in the same link. It'll also be on Six's YouTube page. But enough out of me. I want to get into the good stuff. So let's start with the scoreboard. Gold sitting right now just under 4000 dollars. I think it was the first time it's closed under 4 and quite some time. Silver's in the mid 50s after obviously briefly trading in the triple digits earlier this year. Copper holding near all time highs. And tungsten's gone functionally vertical since China restricted exports. So between the 4 of you, I don't want to make you guys sound old because you're all actually quite young, but you have watched a lot of these cycles. Sean, I'll start with you. Is this correction in precious metals? Is it a normal correction or is it the start of something you think might be less friendly?

1:58 That's a good question. I just want to start off by just kind of zooming out and putting some perspective around this. If you go back 1 year, Gold's up 20%, the GDXJ is up 40%. So if we looked ahead a year and the price of Gold was up 20% and equities were up 40%. I think we should celebrate that. So I know it's doom, it's gloom. You know, on my drive into the office this morning, I had friends saying, oh, it's over. It was nice knowing you. But I think the reality is, look, we had such an epic year in 2025 where gold stocks were up 200%. You know, the silver price was up 200%.

2:43 We had a monster year last year. And I think it's unsustainable. And so that's why, you know, we had some sobering conversations at the VRIC conference here in January when we saw the big surge to $5,500 to $120. Those industry veterans, guys like Rick Rule, you know, were getting up on podium saying, I'm selling, whether it's physical. Now the good news is, from a longer term perspective, the signs that you have at the end of a bull market, We didn't see. So for example, you know, the equities were not

3:20 wildly outperforming the metal. You know, the silver stocks were barely keeping in line with the silver price. You know, we should see 300% outperformance at the end of a bull market cycle. So to answer your question, I think this is a normal correction. You know, if you look at historic bull markets, 20, 30% corrections, even 50% corrections of either the metal or the equities are par for the course. And

3:51 typically like where we are in terms of the seasonality, this is right on cue. The timing of this is right on cue. The depth of it is right on cue. So I think this is a normal correction in a bull market. And I think investors should be looking at where they can allocate at this time. If I could add to that, I think because I'm in Copper now, but I spend most of my career in Gold and I fully agree with Sean. One of the things to keep in mind for investors is that 10, 15 years ago for Gold companies, people were talking about 2, $300 margins, even at $4,000 gold today. Like the margins are insane. I mean, the next few quarters are going to be great quarters. That's going to show the generalists that we're actually a good business to invest in. And you're going to see, I mean, when you look at where Agnico is right now versus where it was at the start of the year, it's like they're in the next quarters are going to be very, very good. And I think that's very positive because they're going to reinvest in juniors and developers and new minds. So that's, you know, those are the types of, that's what you want to see in a bull market.

5:06 And I think if you allow me to add a little bit to that, you see that currently the fence is a very big bucket. We are hitting, we are right now at $2.8T worldwide defence and the metals, although USGS already had their critical metals, the specific percentage, aside from titanium, tungsten,

5:29 let's say is not there. And no investor has the visibility on what's in there. So once it hits, because US is importing, just to talk about silver, this is the one that I know the most, 64% of it's silver and the military is intentionally not reporting how much goes into the precision guided munition, like you know you need silver plate, you need gold plating for all vital critical connectors, like the Patriot system, the PAC, TMS, They did use it, the new hypersonic weapons all use it. The UK used submarines, all use it. And we know that Australia is acquiring already 9 of them. Boeing has never seen a pipeline with a demand as high as now. We have all the mission critical portions have it and there is no visibility of it, but it will trigger. So in the next 2 or 3 quarters with the current arms race that we are seeing, we are going to see metals like silver, copper, gold going ballistic.

6:38 Just because when the army needs it, they will just take it. We have seen it before happening. Sure. And speaking of defense metals, actually, JT, I'll get you and talk about the Tungsten story of last year. I referenced it in the intro, but I'd love to hear your perspective on why it's gone so vertical since the export ban in China.

7:00 Yeah, so we are still, from at least from a tungsten perspective We are still smack dab in the middle of a bull market when it comes to the particular metal So just for anybody within the audience or that'll listen in on the replay, you know tungsten is has had historically on a tonnage basis, a price somewhere around $29,000 a ton

7:28 to $32,500 a ton. Right now, we're currently sitting at about $305,000 a ton. So when, you know, when you look at what stock, what metals have gone parabolic in the last 12 months, tungsten is probably the outlier when it comes to how much it has run. Tungsten has a massive military defense application. So, when you talk to the defense primes and you see that a month ago, POTUS called everybody back to the White House and essentially

8:02 called out a state of emergency to replenish munitions and to arm the war fighter, given all the global conflict that unfortunately we're involved in, tungsten sort of leads the way in that, you know. So It's anything from fighter jets and the counterweights that sit in those fighter jets to you know armor-piercing munitions Munitions that actually have to defend upon that those armor-piercing munitions. All of that is tungsten and so tungsten has been sort of historically about a 10 to 11%

8:35 application into military applications and everything that we're talking with the US government about and with the defense primes, they see that amount tripling just in the next 12 to 18 months. So we don't have any domestic tungsten production here in the United States. As you rightfully point out, Romeo, China cut us off the beginning of 2025. There was legislation passed in 24 that bans all defense-related tungsten products from China and Russia and North Korea on January 1st, 2027. So we, unfortunately, as a country, have worked our way into a situation where we're in a pretty dire position. And Tungsten right now is a simple supply demand case. We can't import it from the 3 largest importers in the world.

9:24 We had sunsetted all of our mines. So there's currently no domestic production for Tungsten. And we're in a time in our history where global conflict is unfortunately

9:35 what we find ourselves in. So that is really the backbone as to why the tungsten price has gone up, you know, 1000 fold in a 9 month period of time. Yeah, it's really interesting. I think you need to add the ammonium-partite tungsten table, because ATP has been already banned by China. So even if you start producing tungsten in the U.S., in the middle of wherever you are, you still will need to depend on China for their controls, for the alloy, the technology. So that has to be solved. And I think

10:05 that's what DAP3 and the DOW warrants and all the incentives that are happening to companies like alloy, MP materials, ImpedionX are helping to bring in not just the material but the technology to do it. Otherwise you'll be like titanium. You can produce titanium sponge, whatever, okay. But then you need magnesium. China control 87% of magnesium. So even if you have a nice magnesium, magnesium mine, whatever, what do you do with it? Tungsten, I have a little bit different view. Tungsten is the one oddity where we're not dependent on China for processing. In fact, we have excess processing capacity here in the United States based on a couple of large players. What we have none of is domestic production. And so that, you know, so the bottleneck actually is the opposite of for Tungsten. It is with other materials is that we've got production capacity, name plate capacity that can be added, but we don't have any place to get it from. So it's a precarious position.

11:18 Just not there. But speaking about global econ for a 2nd, Sean, I want to get you in again, just because I was talking to your colleague, Rick Van Nuyen, who is the company's CEO and Ronnie Stoffer earlier this week. Ronnie said the one thing that'll make gold really rip is if hikes come off the table. So you don't need rates to lower, but the Fed has to take hikes off the table. We've also got Middle East pushing oil and inflation expectations around seemingly week to week. Honestly, before panels, I check the news 5

11:45 minutes before just to make sure I don't miss anything. I'm curious for your take on where you think the economy has to go for precious metals to get on the move. And then I'll get into copper in a second. That's a good question, Romeo. I don't know. I look back in history and there's so many little nuances to some general ideas that we have and some of them are misconceptions.

12:11 So 1 idea is that if you're in a rising rate environment, that is ultimately negative for precious metals. And if we look back at one of the greatest rises in the gold price in the early 80s, it was at a time when rates were actually rising. And so I would argue that it's also about the real rate of inflation, not just the nominal rate. And so Fed could be hiking, but until their nominal rate reaches the real rate of inflation, you could actually still be in a precious metals bull market. So I think there's a tremendous amount of nuances. But look, I can't keep up with all the headlines and all the volatility. So for me, gold works in deflation, it works in inflation.

13:00 And for me, I try to look at it and keep it really, really simple. Whether it's wars, whether it's debts, these governments can't afford it. They just absolutely can't afford it. And so my protection against The funny money is the precious metals. That's that's how you know it's that simple. I love that classic take. I think it was Dan Wilton was on last week. He said unless you see trust in fiat currency increasing over the next 10 years gold remains a good bet. I tend to agree. Vincent I want to get you in on where you think the Copper price is held near its all-time high and where you reckon it'll go in the near future. Yeah, well, look, I think the main theme here in Copper is that, you know, obviously, there's been a lot of headlines.

13:46 The Copper Concentrate market is generally tight. The refined Copper market is pretty much balanced at the moment, but it's more geographical, I would say, distortion at times. So you do see different, you know, you do see companies or countries actually stockpiling on some of that.

14:09 But I would say that the long term outlook per se, you know, remains structurally deficient. I mean, depends on who you look at, whether it's S&P, whether it's ICSG. You're looking at a market right now of around 28Mt per year.

14:29 And when you look at the future, some say it's going to be 2040, you need probably another 7Mt to 14Mt. So it's either you need a 25% growth, 50% growth, depends on where you're looking from now. But That means a lot of new mines. And that's just not, you know, when we, I was in Gold most of my career, but 2, 3 years ago when we sold our last company, I looked at the future and I said, you know what, where do I want to be in 10 years? And Copper was, you know, I'm saying it right now, I didn't see the AI thing coming out, but I was looking at more kind of the structurally, for every Copper mine being developed, you probably have 10 smaller Gold mines or Silver Gold mines getting built. So these big Copper mines take a long time to get onto the market.

15:20 We're looking probably at 17 years to 20 years right now for a Copper mine to go from 0 to production, and that's for new ones. You see there's probably, I was just on a call with the Bank of America before this call. And they have 43 new projects within, we'll call it the big companies, the top 10, top 15 companies, but 30 of them have been on the shelves for like 15 years. You know, so, and They're not bad projects, but the main thing is there's probably either a community issue, there's either a metallurgy issue, there's either a permitting issue.

15:59 There's a lot of projects out there, but the ones that actually get developed are very, you know, don't, don't, you know, there's not a lot of them. So all that to say that now, you know, when we're looking at it, you know, we said, OK, we want to be in Copper, but it was more for an EV for structurally, you know, deficient market in the future. But now you've got this AI theme that just came out 2 or 3 years ago now, or even we'll call it 18 months ago. That's kind of, you know, It's not a black swan event per se, but it's going to change the perspective on copper. I think the general market hasn't really understood where this brings copper, because at the end of the day, whether you want more AI capacity, or you need more silver, you need more copper, you need more a lot of these different metals because they all go into these chips and all go into these supercomputers and so on. So I think that's what we don't fully understand yet. And I think that's

17:02 whatever's being put out right now and with CapEx numbers for these AI, we talk about big CapEx in copper, you know, being 3, 4 billion, 5 billion dollar projects. When you look at these AI CapEx, you know, we have a few investors that are in Hong Kong and they're invested with

17:23 these companies. These companies are talking about 100 billion dollar CapEx. So and the raw material component is like 5 percent of that. So they just put like, okay, 100 million bucks, probably 5Bn for metal. They don't think of, oh, we need to build these mines. So that's, I think that's, that's for me, what's exciting when I look at the Copper market 5, 10 years down the road. I think the visibility of those projects is not there yet in the market. All we know is that we're going to need more mines. But like in all metals, the mines are getting lower grade. All the good projects are gone. So the more difficult ones are the ones that are left. So if you're able to get your hands on a good project, I think you're in a very good position.

18:11 And I appreciate that. And it's certainly, I think, helpful perspective to know that the easiest mines are already done. Some people don't realize I think a lot of the time. Christian, I'm going to get you in because there was a question in the chat that I think is interesting. There were a couple of people on email that asked the same thing and that's, is silver's industrial demand dropping Or is the reduction in price from January just based on its value as a monetary metal? OK, so I think I will frame it like

18:40 the divergence. The divergence is telling us something very specific. The market has separated Silver into 2 assets, okay, and is currently pricing it just on 1, the monetary Silver. So Silver trades like the costing of Gold, let's say, now it's entering Industrial in terms of energy, You know, we know all the increasing solar panel users in AI. OK, so it has corrected her. But industrial silver, the silver inside a PAC3, let's say, interceptor

19:11 being produced right now and is restocked and depleted as the Western arsenals. The silver in torpedo batteries of Virginia class submarines being built under AUKU silver, let's say, and the hypersonic weapon, that demand hasn't corrected at all. It's accelerating. And why is that? Because we don't know how much it is. As I was saying, global military expenditure has reached almost $2.8 trillion in 2025, for the 11th consecutive year of increase. Euro grosses 14% to $800-plus billion. That's the sharpest annual growth since the end of the Cold War, more or less. That's a structural and spending commitment. It's not a quarterly data point. And Silver was formally added by USGS as a critical mineral on November 2025, if I recall correctly, for the first time ever. Now, we also know that US imports 64% of its silver.

20:14 So it's not just a matter of if, it's a national security problem. So that the divergence that we are seeing or this dislocation, if you want to see it, is between the monetary metal and the defense industrial metal is partially real, but just because we don't know the data yet, because we are still using inventories, existing inventories.

20:39 So it will be reflected, the fact that silver demand is invisible, it wouldn't be reflected because silver demand is invisible to public data, but that's not mean that we are not use it. So there will be a point very soon when we are going to see the silver spike going, the silver going ballistic again. And It's not because something funny will happen or something

21:07 like, let's say, a squeeze or anything. It will be a real demand and supply issue. Just allow me to give you an example. The Manhattan Project case, let's say. For anybody, I understand that JT is very involved in the defense. When the Manhattan Project needed, they secretly borrowed 14,000 plus tons of US Treasury silver, okay? And they use it for the electronic magnetic separation for calls of Uranium enrichment and everything that we know. Okay. What happened then? That's a different story. But what I'm trying to say is military does not use silver incrementally. When they need it, they just go and take it. And we are going to see that very soon. What we are going to see is prices going up as we speak because

22:00 how are the governments going to use their silver and they're going to put a unit that is it along the lines and you've got to your new york city but the shanghai they can do it again or anywhere between to india or in nato said I need to I need to restock my pocket my pocket missiles for you praying I need to restock my tomahawks I need to read to my head anything because now we know all these kind of things, OK, the fighter jets, are we going

22:32 to ask or are they going to just take it? We are seeing that they are just taking it. The numbers are talking by itself. The fact that no analysts have them, then there is intentional because no government want to say, okay, I don't have this, But we are going to see silver now at 50 something, okay, going up again, just because the war did it. Well, I appreciate it. And militaries and governments certainly work a little differently than solar panel manufacturers when it comes to purchasing. So fair enough. I got to jump in because silver is my favorite subject here. And first of all, I got to say, Christian, I love your perspective because we don't talk about military and the underreporting. So I just want to say thank you for giving that perspective. The only thing I want to add though, is especially for new entries, new participants in the precious metals landscape, what you have to appreciate is in history, we'd only breached $35 3 times, right? And I know we're so focused on what happened from December to the end of January.

23:37 Right, but again, taking a step back, Silver's up 50% in the last year. Silver equities up 60% in the last year. We're at a price level right now. We're above the old price ceiling. So,

23:56 what was the ceiling is now support. And whether we incrementally lose that support for a nanosecond, to Christian's point, it's not going to matter because what we're setting up for is we're in a structural issue right now where we're mining less than the demand is. And what causes these big price spikes now is you've got 2 competing forces. You've got the industrial user and you've got like, I like Christian Nuss, Gold's cousin. I like that.

24:31 Awesome. And speaking of supply shortages, actually, Vincent, I'll jump to you for a second because I know everybody in Copper from BHP to the IEA says the Copper pipeline is dangerously thin. They usually use the word dangerously, which I find interesting. You're sitting on one of the largest undeveloped porphyries in Peru at Pacoy. Low elevation, close support, same belt as Cerro Verde and Queveco. If the deficit is as real as the majors say, what does it take to move a deposit like yours up the development curve?

24:59 And what do investors maybe misunderstand about timelines for Copper projects? Well, yeah, no, I think, you know, right now, like, you know, one of the stats that's going around right now is 96,000 tonnes of refined Copper is kind of your trigger really going, you know, from, you know, really needing more and more metal. So that's basically 1 mine. So if you've got 1 mine that goes offline or that isn't in the pipeline, that doesn't show up, then the balance of the market is off. And that's 96,000 tonnes of surplus on a 28 million tonne market. I mean, it doesn't take a lot to move the Copper prices. Obviously, the Copper prices going up is going to help a lot.

25:49 But I think what we've seen in the last year, whether it's Grasberg, Kamoka, Kula, El Teniente, a lot of these mines are underground mines. And for the last 10, 15 years, we've looked at, or we've heard, especially on the base level front and especially on the Copper side, these big block caves were kind of what the operators were looking at. Because yes, they do have higher grades. However, technically speaking and operationally, they're a lot tougher to operate. I think that's what we have for us. When you look at Southern Peru, whether it's the Anglos, whether it's the Southern Coppers, Grupo Mexico, Freeport, they operate all very, very big, large open pits.

26:40 And they're not the highest grades in the world. Right now, Cerro Verde is probably around 0.24 Copper. They do have some 0.3 days. And even if you look at the U.S. Side of things, in Baghdad, I think they're at like 0.2, 0.3 on good days. So it's, I mean, looking at it from an operator point of view, having a low elevation, closer infrastructure, a big open pit that's simple. Right now, our mineralization basically sits within a hill. So from a stripping ratio, we're going to be around 0.5 or so. All these things add to the

27:20 attractiveness of the projects, but most importantly, as it's, you know, it's the case in all countries, making sure you keep the communities on board and being in an area where you're not in a, you know, close to a nature reserve or anything of that

27:37 sort. The good thing with where we're at in Southern Peru is that we are in basically mining communities. Most of the activity around us are informal or formalized mining. So that's something that's part of their culture. They understand the benefits of the mining sector. So that's something we're very, very lucky. But it's all about, you know, and Christian knows that very well as well in Peru is I think every area is different and it's not it's very different in Canada. I think you know there's places you want to go in Quebec, you want there's places you don't want to go and you know whether you just have to take care of the communities and make sure that they're your first point of contact in everything you do. But I think that's where when a big company looks at saying we'll acquire a project, they want to know, have you lined up

28:27 the community?

28:28 What's your permitting status? What's the government status? And then after that, if you answer those questions, they'll look at your project. Because if you don't answer those, as I mentioned in the intro, there's a lot of these projects that are on the shelves and they've been on the shelves for 20, 30 years. And there's a reason why they're there. I would say 50% of that, I would think is likely because either the political front or the community side is not taken care of. Those are obviously things that investors should keep a clean eye on. While we're still on the topic of shortages, I don't think there's a bigger shortage than 0 for domestic production. So JT, I'll jump to you. I know the Pilot Mountain PFS came out at the end of June, showing a 660 million NPV at a base case price that's roughly a third below spot.

29:17 So fairly conservative for today's pricing with the Department of War already invested through DPA. Walk us through what Tungsten Market Reset looks like from inside the only US project with a compliant PFS in hand.

29:32 Well, you know, we've essentially as a country have to start from 0. Look,

29:41 we took a contrarian view back in, call it 2022, and we had acquired, so our jurisdiction is Nevada. So, you know being able to have 2 world-class tungsten projects essentially in the same mineral belt in the number 1 mining jurisdiction in the world, you know as identified by the Fraser Institute, I think is a pretty good it was a bit of a you know a bit of a gamble but it seemed to have paid off. And our flagship asset at the time was Pilot Mountain. So with Pilot Mountain you've got a completed PFS, you have an investment from the Department of War that has been deployed. A big, a big milestone for us as a company is we brought our company over from the AIM exchange in London onto the New York Stock Exchange by the end of Q1.

30:30 And so we've really now started to kind of build upon that. And we feel that the environment as it comes to US-based tungsten mines sort of runs through us. And the reason is, is that there are certain things you just can't fast track. We're on year 3 of our baseline studies, right? So we've completed multiple years of environmental impact studies,

30:57 bugs, bunnies, everything else, birds, Flora, fauna, you name it. We've got multiple years of studies. We completed the PFS as we said we would by 30th of June. The economics came back and they're as robust as I've ever seen on a project in my 20 years doing this. As you mentioned, $660 million

31:18 at a discounted spot price. You know, at spot price today, it's about, for our CapEx number, which is $288 million, in the scheme of things, being able to add, you know, 15 to 20% of the US's needs for tungsten. That's anywhere between a 6 and a 12-month payback. So the economics, very, very robust. Deposit, we were able to increase the resource by about 40%. So we're in a really good position. And the market actually hasn't really recognized the fact that we have another world-class asset about 2 hours away. 1 that was at one point the largest producing tungsten asset in the United States. And we ended up picking that up really right before the Tungsten boom started to happen.

32:05 So we got it for a song. It has an estimated $40 million of infrastructure already on it. It's got the mill building and shell already built. It's got a 3000 kilowatt power station. It's got tailings, it's got stockpile, it's got water pipeline. We then added to the land package and then actually bought the water rights next door So we're building a platform as how we refer to refer to it We're building a platform to help bring tungsten back to the United States and help really rearm the defense industrial base. And so it's been fun. It's been a bit trailblazing too as well. And we've been supported by just a fantastic

32:48 tungsten concentrate price, which is what we're going to be producing. So, no, awesome. I appreciate that perspective. I think people forget defense metal sometimes to my audience. It's good to have one of the trailblazers in America on the panel today. Sean, I want to ask you a question about M&A because people always ask about M&A on these events. You've actually lived it. I know most M&A deals have been consolidation between similar companies, but Dolly Varden and Contango took a different route, pairing a high-grade silver developer with a cash-flowing producer. What did you see in that structure that you thought the market would appreciate and that you thought would build a better company? Well, I've been studying and watching companies like Hakla, Coor, 1st Majestic. You could say there's 10 primary silver producers out there.

33:40 And so there's only 10 choices, you know, in the gold space. There's you know, many multiples beyond that. So it's a small market. And so when interest does come in for silver, there's just a few go-to names. And, you know, we saw some of the greatest performance in the market in names like Hekla Mining in 2025.

34:00 So my thinking was studying, you know, the work Keith Neumeyer's done, the work Michael Simon's done, is if we could position a company. First of all, we've been in a bear market up until 2025. For 15 years, we were in a very, very difficult landscape. And that landscape, what you saw in the M&A space, is you saw the majors come together, whether it was Gold Corp and Newmont, Newmont Newcrest, Barrick Randgold. So you had this mergers of the super majors. And what I think that's left is a void. It's a there's a huge void in the mid tier space. And what I was trying to create is a new emerging name for investors. I don't think it's appropriate that you can either invest in a $20 billion company or a $100 billion company or a starving junior.

34:55 I think the market wants to see something where in the case of the company that we've created here, you've got a company that's got cash flow. So, markets go up, markets go down. We don't need to go back to market and issue shares. We're generating $100M a year. We have $100M in the bank.

35:18 And What I really celebrate about the company is it's got the future pipeline already built in to the code. You've got the producing asset, but you've got 3 development stage assets, 1 that's going to be in production very quickly. So, what I liked is I'm emulating, you know, I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel here. There's been some wonderful work done by some very, very successful entrepreneurs before me, where they've essentially leveraged the silver premium that companies celebrate which trades at a premium to their gold peers and by having, you know, one of the biggest and highest-grade undeveloped silver projects in the safe world in the Kitsault Valley, the Dali Vardhan project, and then marrying that with, as you put it, the cash flow of gold in Alaska, I just thought it's a company that I'd want to own.

36:13 So for me, it's if you If you like safe jurisdiction, you like high grade, you can buy Hecla in billions of dollars of market cap, or you can buy what I think is going to be the next Hecla in the company that we're creating, Contango Silver and Gold. Appreciate it. And Sean, really quick, I'll just stay on you. Which of Contango's assets do you think is most mispriced by the market right now? So I'm going to draw a parallel here between Contango and Silver. OK. And so stay with me. I'm going to stay with me here. This is a bit of a leap, but look, in all honesty, what's happened with silver is as industry has gone from 10% to 50%, you know, silver kind of got mistaken. It was going to go through this identity crisis. Am I an industrial metal? Am I a precious metal? And it underperformed.

37:06 And then what you saw last year is it outperformed. Now in Contango, you had 2 companies, 1 was a gold producer, 1 was a silver developer, and I think when they came together the market was misunderstood and there were some who were on either side of the transaction that didn't celebrate the rationale. But I think what will happen, just like we saw in the case of Silver, is as we continue to execute on our plan, right, and as we move from a year of $100M of free cash flow to, you know, I think what could be a year that's closer to $200M of free cash flow in 2027. So, as we deliver on the production side and we continue to execute on the drill programs and the permitting front on these other projects, I think the same fate will happen. So, I think, look, you can take one of our projects, Johnson Track, that's got a $600M NPV at $4,000 Gold. That's the market cap of the company today.

38:11 And then we have 3 other projects. Plus, we have cash, plus we're generating. So, I think they're all mispriced. But I think it's, it's, I knew there was going to be some medicine to take initially, as you know, different 2 different shareholder groups, a lot of questions around the transaction. But I think as we execute, we saw it in the month of April. I'll just close with this. In the month of April, we closed the deal at the end of March. The GDXJ was flat in the month of April. We were up 30%. And for me, that validated the reasons to merge. And I think as we continue to deliver, we're putting out a new MRE at Kitsalt where we're going to increase the Silver. We've got drill results.

38:58 We've got the big production year coming in 2027. You know, I think you give us 6 months and this is going to look dramatically different. Sure. I appreciate that. Vincent, I know you've got to head out a bit early, so I'll throw you a kind of double question. 1, I wanted to ask where you think M&A in the Copper space is going? I know you already mentioned there are very few actually big projects left. But I'll also give you an opportunity to just pitch Picoy. There's several hundred people in the room. I'd love if you could give me a perspective on why now is the time to look at the company. Yeah, no, Thank you very much. Yeah, no, I think buildability is the main thing, right? So whether it's M&A or whether the big producers decide to build it organically, buildability is the main thing. And that's one thing that we focused on when we looked at Picoi and we said, how does this project actually get to the finish line, meaning to production?

39:52 And when we looked at whether it was geologically and for those of you who are not aware of Picoy, please send me questions afterwards. But in a nutshell, this is a project that's been around for 20 years, but in the private eye. It was never in the public domain. The main reason behind that project and why it never went public is that you had a different set of shareholders that held pieces of the deposit and they never drilled it as a combined entity. So what we did last year, we combined it and we went public with the asset. But that gave us 50,000m of drilling that was combined. So it gave us a really good base to start. And when we saw the data, we looked, we saw a lot of holes from a geological point of view.

40:41 So that's what we're doing right now. We're drilling 40,000m within Picoi in our second project called Tororume, which is 8km away. But the main thing right now is how, what we want to show is how big is Picoy. So we want to get to the levels of the Warinsas and the Gaspes and the larger players because we think that asset holds that capacity to become one of those big, major Copper-Gold deposits in Southern Peru. And as I said before, the main thing for us also is buildability. We're in a great jurisdiction. We're 6 hours away from our keep us. We have all the providers, whether it's the drillers, whether it's the future contractors, everything's around their project. And most importantly, we also have a very good relationship with our communities. They see this as a very big positive for them in the future.

41:38 We're only 85km away from the coast and we're low elevation. So at 1,600m for big Copper Gold porphyry makes a big difference in cost. When you look at some of these high Andes projects, you're looking at US$1,000 to US$1,500 a metre to drill. We're drilling for around US$400 a metre at the moment. It does make a big difference. We're able to do a lot more with what we have. And importantly, whether it's in Peru or elsewhere in the world, having permits is very important too. So we inherited some permits on some of our claims, we were able to hit the ground running and really start drilling. We now have 3 rigs on the site. We're going up to 4 this summer and then 5.

42:29 The main question we want to answer is how big is this deposit? And then following that, we're going to be looking at doing PEAs, PFS studies next year, but we're already starting a lot of that metallurgical work, the geotech work. We come from the mentality that you have to do things properly. So we do it once, but it might be, some people might think we're going a bit too intense, but that's the way we do things. We do it once and we do it so that when the big companies come in, or if we end up building this thing ourselves, at least the work's done properly. So, yeah, no. So, you know, when we look at it from our versus our peers, we're significantly undervalued. Mostly, I would think because we're a new company, we're not a name that's been around for 5 years.

43:16 And I think the people and investors are going to come to know us. And I think Bikoi is going to become one of those names in the Copper space within the next 12 to 18 months that people are going to point to a very good project and buildability. So, Romeo, I know this is Vincent's first time on your platform, but I just want to say I was a shareholder of his last company, Nomad, which was a successful exit and excellent operator. That's great. I appreciate that. And thank you, Vincent. I know you got a jet, but for everybody in the room, there's a request meeting button at the bottom. You can request a meeting with any of the speakers teams today, so please do feel free to use that at any point during the rest of today's event. It'll also be on the page after I close it off. But Krishna, I wanted to get to you, because I know as COO, you're the one actually running Bethania Mine day to day. You hit 100 tons per day in March. You're targeting 350 by the end of the year. You've ramped the operation through silver from, geez, I worked with David, from the low 30s in silver to over 120, back to 60 in 18 months. From the operator's seat, how do you plan mine development and a 20,000m drill program around a metal that's moving like that?

44:27 Okay. So something important is that this 18 months of price journey, let's call it, has taught us operationally something I think most analysts miss when they look at the small underground silver mines from the outside, let's say. This price volatility, when we see it moves, it actually matters less than what you think for how we run the mine itself, and matters enormously, like massively, on how we build our balance sheet. So allow me to explain that. At Bethania, development decisions where we drive the ramp, or which structure we mine, we chase, which stoves we follow or develop, how deep we go, are driven by geology, not by Silver at 60 or 120 because the current geology works even with Silver at 15.

45:26 So we're committed to deepening this 4.5x4.5 round. Okay. And the decision stands at any price that it's above the cutoff. So we are likely to see the great profile that we are chasing won't change, okay? We already have historical average north of 18 ounces in certain zones. The economic, what I'm trying to say is that the economic works, either silver is 19, for us at least 19, 40,120 or more. The question is always, are you developing towards your highest grade optionality or diluting yourself chasing tons at lower grade?

46:13 This is a deep discipline that protects you when silver gets to 20, let's say, or 56 as today. Where price matters massively, enormously, is the timing when we need capital allocation. So when silver was running high, 80, 90,100, we used that window to strengthen our balance sheet. So now we came to this correction with a very healthy amount of money within Kuya's pockets. So why this is important? We are not making development decision with our hands, our heads. That is a real operational skill in this environment. Using the bull face to build yourself the runway and execute to the bare faces without being forced to compromise.

47:02 So that's where, let's say, the operator and the market intelligence need to come together and see what portion is doing by whom. So I would like to add another layer that needs also attention to when we talk about the operations and how the prices might or might not affect the operations, the replacement cost argument for high-grade silver. What that means is that this silver in the ground is becoming increasingly compelling. Why it is connected? Why? Because as I was explaining in the beginning, it's connected to the fence demand story. With the fence rising to almost 3 trillion, there will be a point where we need to ask at what price does it become cheaper for a government to buy the silver in the ground rather than chase it on the sport market, because the demand will rise very fast and the decision will need to be taken fast.

48:03 That's a replacement cost question. At 56 spot with a 6 consecutive year of supply deficit and US as I said, importing 64% of its silver, already declared critical as we already established. When will holding that silver and the US becoming or NATO, France, Germany, any country becoming the owner of the silver from the moment it's in the ground and they might not care really of the grade that you are exporting as long as you can put metal on the table. When will that decision or that approach will happen? I think the optionality is real and we are about to see it very fast. We already have seen China constraining their export. You will say, okay, why does it matter to operators?

48:56 This is very important. If I would be a miner of an underground mine in China and I am forced to sell all my silver to a Chinese government that will pay whatever price it takes, you better not, you rather, you really don't care about the spot market. You just care about how much metal you can put on whatever factory or whatever is required. It could be a moment where Lockheed, Raytheon, Leonardo and all these big companies say, guys, I need silver. I really don't care. I really don't care. So you can see NATO, you can see US, you can see B20 countries going and say, that's mine. Okay, but I have one on silver here. I don't care How fast can you put this silver here in this factory in Italy, here in this factory in Texas? How fast can you do that?

49:53 So that that that moment is coming as today. What we are seeing with silver, although it's a 56 a very high price going to Sean's point is one of the highest price. So we were used, let's say when everyone silver was at 20 something, everybody was saying, let's cross our fingers for silver to go above 30. Now, 120 and at 55, we're going to say, oh, silver is too low. It's not too low. All silver mining companies are making money because processing silver is not as expensive as its current price. The problem is that we're seeing the correction. As I totally agree with Sean, silver was considered whether it's monetary, whether it's industrial, so how do I price it? So it was, and importantly, the inventories worldwide were not being depleted at current ratio.

50:49 With this current ratio and the speed that Silver is being used without being able to recycle it or reuse it, we will see the demand going up. And 56, 54, this is still a very high price for silver to go up. Sure, I appreciate that. And over the course of this panel, both silver and gold have gone from red to black. So for the Chinese central bankers watching, thank you very much. But I'll get into government funding and I'll throw it to you, JT, actually to start. So I did have one quick question on that. I know you already have the Pentagon, the Department of War as an investor in the company. Washington's been taking equity stakes and writing off takes across critical minerals. Do you think government money in this era is going to become a permanent feature of how mines get financed in the West?

51:39 It's a great question. I certainly spend more than my fair share of time in Washington, D.C. I think one of the consistent things that we've seen is an evolution of how the government wants to help. You know, I think one of the things that falls under the radar is is the permitting support reform and an explanating processes that that the U.S. Government under the current administration has have pushed forward. We've seen a very distinct evolution when it comes to the types of financial instruments that the US government is offering. They've got equity and equity-like structures, and I phrase it that way intentionally, because all equity is not created equal. And then the variety of debt structures, and within different departments, not all debt structures are created.

52:33 Certainly, for us, when you look at some of the deals that have come out of, say, the Office of Strategic Capital, and specifically under the DPA Title III program, which is where our investment came from, you also have the CHIPS Act, again, a variety of things. I certainly think that while the current administration stays in office, I do think it's going to be a big part of their agenda. I firmly believe that. Critical minerals as a whole have become a national security priority. So whether or not the White House goes red or stays red or goes blue, I think this is part of the new norm going forward. And so I think support could evolve into other ways of doing things, but I certainly think that for the next couple of years, you've got to navigate the labyrinth and you've got to be in the conversations, the right conversations, you've got to be executing on your project.

53:36 That's the other thing. You know, the current administration is very much focused on if we're going to be involved in the project, we want a very clear path forward to get to revenue and get to production, which I don't think has been the case in previous administrations. But yeah, I mean, it's a long winded answer to your question, which is, I do believe wholeheartedly that the US government under the current confines is going to stay involved and going to try and enhance domestic mining opportunities for critical minerals. I personally have never seen mining feel more bipartisan in my life. Feels like it's most Most parties in most countries understand that. Yeah. And one of the interesting points I like to put out to investors and potential investors is our investment was actually by the Department of, at the time, Department of Defense, was actually approved under the Biden administration.

54:32 So it was approved and then what had to be re-qualified when the current administration came in office and had to pass the muster. So we have living proof of bipartisanship when it comes to funding for critical minerals projects. Yeah, and same with FAST-41, which I know Sean Contango's programs are on. It's also, people forget, the Democrat initiative that's been supported by Republicans through. Sean, I got a quick one for you before I let everybody pitch their stock, where we wrap up today. And that's Obviously, and I think people in the room understand this, metals prices are still, as we talked about multiples, where they were 2 years ago. Yet junior equities still trade at a weird fraction of what those prices imply. So I'll just throw it to you for what you think is going to close that gap. Yeah, I think I think we're starting to see the gap close, right? I think, you know, the natural progression in, you know, when you come from a bear market, and we were in a long bear market, What happens is, you know, leadership typically is with the crown jewel of the mining industry, the Royalty companies, right? And the Royalty companies like Franco and Wheaton, you know, we see the multiples they're trading at, we see the record cash they're generating.

55:48 Those stocks, those companies have appreciated. You know, another class, the large cap producers, you know, Agnico Eagle, you know, if you bought Agnico in 2018 at $40 a share, you know, I haven't looked at it recently, but you could have made 10 times your money. And so as large investors start locking in the profits from the royalty companies and the large producers, And as those large producers continue to generate record cash flow, we're talking billions of dollars a quarter, you're starting to see the trickle down. Now, I've been on calls over the last 2 weeks with a lot of institutional investors all over the globe.

56:33 And the one thing that I'm hearing from the institutional investor is, they're coming down to the developer category, right? So, you know, they're initially looking for developers that are permitted, right? But they're open to the unfunded developer category. So I think this is a natural trickle down that occurs. And then, you know, as we progress in this bull market, you know, we'll get to a place where the explorers will have love. We'll get to a place where, you know, we'll get to a, you know we'll be at a top, Romeo, when we start valuing companies, not based on their cash flow, not based on their reserves, but on their acreage, and the prospectivity and the optionality.

57:21 We're a long ways away from that. And 1 indicator your viewers can look at right now is the Venture Exchange Index. Historically, that was an index where, you know, 1500 points to 2500 points, got up to 3500 points in the 2007 market, went almost back up there in 2010. And I haven't looked at the Venture Exchange recently, but I bet you if I pulled it up right now, it's probably hovering around 1000 points. So I think we've got a broad-based rally that's going to take all boats up by about 300%. But within that, you know, I was just at the rule symposium last week, Rick rule talks about 40% of the success is driven by 1% of the industry.

58:12 So what that translates for me is for all boats to be risen by 300%, you're gonna have outliers out there that are 20 baggers, 50 baggers. So to answer your question, it's gonna come and it's just naturally gonna trickle down. And we started that process. We started that process in 2018. And we're starting to see that move down to the unfunded developer category. I appreciate that perspective. Somebody once told me you know we're near the top until you get free champagne at PDAC and for those who are there this year a lot of domestic beers, cash bars, still not there So all good. We got time for everybody to give just a quick minute pitch on why it's a good time to take a look at your stock. Christian, I'll start with you. Why would now be a good time for investors in the room? There are quite a few of them. Take a look at Cuella.

58:59 Okay, So the first thing I would say is if we have learned something is that with military tells that they don't, that they lack something, most likely that's not a real thing. So what they are, as you can see, everybody's talking about titanium and others, but nobody on earth and nobody's talking about scandium. And that's very important when you weld everything, okay? The same thing happened with silver. There is a reason why it's not specifically declared in any of the US military, NATO, Chinese or anybody's budget that silver is under, electronic and others. It's because of the importance. Silver will rise a lot just because of that demand. And you need to go to invest in companies that can put Silver fast into a smelter, meaning Silver concentrate, Silver dore, whatever that's doing.

59:58 That's the way we have built Kuya Silver. We built Kuya silver with the intention of discovering something and get as fast as we can to production. Not trying to continue drilling forever because you can miss the cycle. The metal is required now. So my recommendation to everybody who is listening here would be take a look at companies that are very good at making the transition from exploration to operation and then that can sustain the operation. Not because exploration is one thing and it will give you cash at some point, okay? But the moment the generalist investors hit the mining environment as they are doing and treating commodities, different commodities, asset class, we will see gold and silver being treated in a very different way. We will see tungsten being treated in a different way. And I will see silver will have its own place at the table.

1:00:58 And companies like Kuya Silver, they're growing their production and want to become one of the biggest players in one of the most important historical Silver jurisdictions worldwide, we'll see an exponential increase. I appreciate that very much. JT, I'll throw it to you. Why is now a good time to take a look at Guardian Metal? When you look at the macro trends right now, and you look at the fact that we still have no domestic tungsten production, we're the nearest term solution, essentially, in the western part of the United States. Tungsten price has continued to skyrocket and has for the better part of a year. We've got import restrictions that have been in effect since the beginning of 25, January 1st, 2027, No military application, tungsten or tungsten products are allowed to be imported into this country from China, Russia, and North Korea.

1:01:57 We have 2 assets that have been past producing, So we were able to contribute a significant amount to the U.S. Industrial base once we're in production. The sector has come off a little bit, so we are at a good price point for anybody that wants to come in and enter the stock. We're a New York stock and stock exchange listed organization, just delivered a robust PFS. We've got a second asset that has ready-made product at surface. I mean, with infrastructure already in place, We're Department of War funded. The list goes on and on and on. We have never felt better about where we are as a company and where the metal is needed domestically than we do as we sit here on the 17th of July 2026.

1:02:47 It's a great time to get in and get on the Tungsten bandwagon. Awesome. And just before I go to Sean, a reminder, you can request a meeting with any of the speakers by pressing the request meeting button at the bottom of the screen. Sean, I'll let you close it off today. Why is now a good time to take a look at Contango Silver and Gold? Well, I just want to say for all the panelists here, you know, all the companies here have treasury. You know, you know, Christian's a new friend, but I've known the CEO there, David, for 20 years. They raised when silver was $100 an ounce, right? And they filled their treasury and they did the right thing for shareholders. So I think what you want to look for if you're investing right now is you want to stay away from companies that need to raise money at these depressed levels. That's my opinion. And specifically in the case of Contango, I think it's about the people. In mining, you're depleting your resources every day you wake up as a miner, right? So you've got to trust that people are going to creatively replenish those resources. And in the case of Contango, I'm the president, our CEO, Rick Van Nuenhuyzen, has built 2 businesses in Alaska that have become billion dollar businesses.

1:03:54 Contango's is third. And in January, USD, we got up to a $1.1 billion market cap. Today we're 500 million. We're a $500 million market cap USD with 100 million in the bank. We're generating $100 million a year. We're not getting any value for the large high grade gold and Silver resources that we have in the ground. We've had a track record of executing. We've got a number of catalysts like the MRE, the big drill results. We're investing US$50M into drilling this year. For me, I'm putting my money where my mouth is. I made about a US$600,000 investment in the spring in the company. Rick recently bought shares in the open market. So, we think that, we've been around a long time, we've seen a lot of cycles, and we've taken all those lessons and we're applying it to Contango and Silver and Gold.

1:04:47 So I think it's a great time. Appreciate it. JT, Sean, Christian and Vincent too, who had to go. Thank you all so much for joining us. Great discussion. I know there were a large audience today, so I appreciate everybody's attendance. Hope you guys all have a great weekend. Rest of your day. Rest your day.