Americas Gold and Silver Corporation (AMEX:USAS) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript

Americas Gold and Silver Corporation (AMEX:USAS) Q4 2025 Earnings Call Transcript March 30, 2026

Operator: Hello, and welcome to the Americas Gold and Silver Fourth Quarter 2025 Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]. I will now turn the conference over to Paul Huet, Chairman and CEO. Please go ahead.

Paul Huet: Thank you, and good morning, everyone. I’d like to welcome you to our fourth quarter year-end 2025 conference call. This call will be recorded and available to watch on our website event page later today. Please note that all dollar figures will be expressed in U.S. dollars throughout this call, unless otherwise noted. We will also be referencing a slide deck that will be shared during the webcast for this call. Joining me today are Warren Varga, our Chief Financial Officer, who will walk through our fourth quarter and full year financials; and Oliver Turner, our Executive Vice President of Corporate Development. I’ll start off with a few key updates before turning it over to Warren. Before I begin, I would like to remind you to review our cautionary statements regarding forward-looking information and non-IFRS measures.

These statements are included in our year-end MD&A, news release and in the presentation slides. Let me start by saying how excited I am about the massive transformation we have delivered at Americas Gold and Silver throughout 2025 and into early 2026. But before I outline our progress at the mines, I would like to announce a very significant milestone for our company. Just a few weeks ago, our Galena team achieved a major safety milestone. We have completed one full year in over 550,000 man hours of work. During that year, we had no lost time accident. Nothing is more important than the safety of our miners. And I would like to congratulate the team on the culture around safety we are building at Galena and in Mexico as well, well done team.

2025 was a year of transformation for our business, and we delivered exactly that. In 2025, we achieved a massive 52% increase in attributable silver production, up to 2.65 million ounces. At Galena, this was accomplished despite a total of 20-plus days of planned shutdowns for significant upgrades to both #3 and core shafts in addition to many other derisking optimization projects that I will discuss later on this call. So a massive increase in production while we’re shutting down and growing the operation is quite impressive. 2025 was also highlighted by a production record year of 1.2 million ounces set by Cosala, where our team delivered the highest annual and quarterly silver output in operation in history, while successfully ramping up the EC120 to commercial production.

This is another remarkable milestone and a testament to the exceptional execution by our entire team at Cosala. Congratulations to everyone at the operation for achieving these record-breaking numbers while setting the table for a very strong future. At Galena, consistent productivity gains came alongside our focus on major capital projects and the integration of the newly acquired Crescent Mine. I’m proud of our team for advancing key operational initiatives, including the introduction of long-hole stoping. The expansion of our underground mining fleet the upgrades to #3 and core shaft, all of which position us to support increased development and accelerate mining rates moving forward. Over the course of 2025, we have made major progress in mining, infrastructure and in development at Galena, our transition to long-hole stoping is going exceptionally well.

To date, we have mined 7 to 9 long-hole stope panels designed at specific width, while three new long-hole stopes are currently being developed at the moment. I think it is very worthwhile noting that in 2024, we had 0 long-hole stopes, so this is an extremely exceptional step in the right direction and where we’re wanting to head at Galena. In Q4 of 2025, we accelerated upgrades by installing the new 2,250 horsepower motor and a redundant motor at the core shaft, further derisking the operation and supporting our growth plans. Phase 2 of the #3 shaft upgrades remain on track for completion in Q2 of 2026. With the arrival of all the parts coming in this month, in March and early April, needed to complete the upgrades on the braking systems and the lillies.

This will bring the total hoisting capacity to over 100 tonnes per hour, representing a 160% increase compared to the 40 tonnes per hour achieved in 2024 and when we started this project. We have all seen major productivity improvement. In ’25, we had about a 200% improvement on mucking operations. We’re now seeing around 200 tons of ore move per ship up from around 50 tonnes of ore when we were doing conventional mining. This is through the use of remote control mucking. Other significant achievements at Galena included a new Alimak ventilation rate, new declines in place that are debottlenecking mining areas. We made major investments into our underground mining fleet replacing and upgrading a large portion of our year with more expected in 2026.

Lastly, we are bringing Galena into the modern era of mining, we are currently installing a modern fiber optic communication that will allow us to remotely monitor and optimize pieces of equipment in the mine. In just 1 year, we have completed a large number of projects and upgrades to the mine, and we will continue this strong progress in 2026. At present, we’re off to extremely fast start there as well with key infrastructure and equipment upgrades in place within a few short weeks of closing the acquisition in December. Firstly, we added line power to all three audits and are actively setting up the operation to deliver ore to the Galena mill later this year after commissioning the secondary egress. Our updated mineral resource estimate has shown a larger and higher grade ore body at Galena, a tremendous result in our first year of drilling.

Even when excluding the historical resource at present, our 2P is over 25 million ounces; M&I over 115 million ounces; and in third is over 133 million ounces of silver. And I just want to remind folks, this is not silver equivalent. This updated resource gives us even greater confidence in the quality and longevity of our assets. I also want to note that our operations in the Silver Valley are still among some of the shallower and we know there is more silver to be found here. We are quite excited to continue drilling and exploring these previously underexplored properties, both in Mexico and in Idaho. As a company, we recently launched the largest exploration program in history, with approximately 64,000 meters of drilling planned across the Galena complex, including Crescent and Cosala.

This follows the discovery of 10 new high-grade silver, copper, antimony and silver lead veins at Galena. Highlighted by intercepts of approximately 4,900 grams per tonne of silver, 4% copper over with of 1.3 meters and 2,600 grams per tonne silver and 1.4% antimony, over 0.7 meters wide. The continued discovery of these high-grade veins like 34 veins, 149 veins and the newly discovered 520 vein announced today are strong examples of the tremendous potential of Galena to continue to grow with high-grade discoveries. Something the mine has been doing consistently for well over 100 years. This February, we announced a landmark joint venture with United States antimony to build and operate a new antimony facility at the Galena Complex, creating the first fully U.S. mine to finish antimony solution and creating additional downstream value for our shareholders.

Our full year antimony and copper byproduct production from the Galena Complex further demonstrates the value potential of our unique position as the largest active U.S. antimony mine. Beginning January 1, ’26, we finally started receiving revenue from these byproducts under the new offtake agreement negotiated with Ocean Partners at NTEC Resources as earlier announced in June of 2025. Looking ahead, we’re extremely excited about the opportunity in antimony production as we continue test work initiatives and evaluate numerous pathways to unlock the substantial byproduct value of antimony at the Galena complex. Moving forward, Americas remains squarely focused on playing a leading role in strengthening U.S. critical minerals supply chains. Finally, we introduced our formal 2026 production, cost and capital guidance.

For the full year, we expect consolidated silver to be 3.2 million to 3.6 million ounces at an ASIC of $30 to $35 per ounce sold. This is yet another 30% increased production over last year. The last year, 50%, another 30% as we continue along that trend that we’re heading towards over that 5 minutes. It keeps us well on track and on course to return Galena back to those historical production and record levels. These are big, big step-ups year after year. Our cost guidance reflects deliberate investments in advancing operational improvements at Galena and Crescent, including the completion and commissioning of the new surface past fill plant, as we’ve been discussing for some time, as well as the planned transition in our mining methods over the next few years to getting 60% to 70% long-hole stoping and a mixture of 30% under hand capital.

These changes will drive higher productivity, lower cost over the medium and short-term time. Consolidated capital expenditures are targeted between $90 million and $120 million, including Crescent development while exploration capital is targeted between $15 million to $20 million. 2026 will be another pivotal year for infrastructure upgrades that Galena and our complex so desperately needs, building directly on the strong foundation we’ve established in 2025. Overall, I’m extremely pleased with the progress we have made over the last year, which has laid a strong foundation for a very — for a continued growth of 2026 and beyond across both Idaho and Mexico. I’ll now turn the call over to Warren for our financial highlights.

Warren Varga: Thank you, Paul. This morning, we released our Q4 and full year 2025 financial results. Our audited financial statements and MD&A for the 12 months ended December 31, 2025, are available on our website and under Americas Gold and Silver profile on both SEDAR+ and EDGAR. For the full year, our consolidated revenue increased to $118 million, up 18% from $100 million in 2024, driven by higher silver production and strong realized prices. We achieved consolidated attributable silver production of 2.65 million ounces with approximately 3.4 million ounces of silver equivalent, including 9.3 million pounds of lead and 2 million pounds of copper in addition to 561,000 pounds of antimony. As for our cost structure, cost of sales per silver equivalent ounce and cash costs and all-in sustaining cost per silver ounce produced averaged $25, $26 and $33 respectively.

On the earnings front, we reported a net loss of $87 million or $0.33 per share in 2025 compared to a net loss of $49 million or $0.46 per share in 2024. Our adjusted earnings loss for the year was $35 million or $0.13 per share compared to $34 million or $0.32 per share in 2024. Adjusted EBITDA for 2025 was a loss of $4 million or $0.02 per share compared to $1.5 million or $0.01 per share in 2024. We remain optimistic about the future with silver production expected to grow as we advance the restart of the Crescent mine and continuing optimizing the EC120 mine at our Cosala operations. To support this growth, we closed a $133 million bought deal financing in December 2025, which also funded the cash portion of the Crescent acquisition. With that, I’ll now turn the call over to Oliver Turner.

Oliver Turner: Thank you, Warren, and good morning, everyone. The past year has been an incredibly active and productive period for the entire Americas team. From completing the Crescent acquisition, delivering strong exploration successes, announcing the U.S. antimony joint venture for the antimony processing facility in Idaho and delivering strong operational results across all sites, we’ve made significant progress in many different areas. On the market side, we’ve continued to see strong institutional support and interest. The tightly held ownership of our shares has increased from just 7% in late 2024 to over 65% presently, certainly a strong signal of market support. This level of alignment continues to be a key differentiator for Americas.

And over the past year alone, our team has conducted more than 400 institutional investor meetings. We’ve also seen meaningful index inclusions with Americas being added to the VanEck’s GDXJ and SIL ETFs, along with a significant increase in the SILJ ETF shareholding. Over the course of the year, we’ve also added five new analysts covering our name, and we greatly appreciate their support, bringing our total coverage universe to seven research analysts. With increased generalist interest, we’ve also seen increased Tier 1 media interest as highlighted by recent interviews with both FOX Business and Bloomberg following our U.S. antimony joint venture announcement. Since the beginning of our transformation in late 2024, USA shares that significantly outperformed the Silver peer group, yet we still trade at a significant discount to NAV compared to our peers providing a rare combination of both silver growth and value in a single stock with nearly 80% of revenue exposed to silver, a growing antimony revenue stream, major new exploration discoveries and a strong growth profile ahead of us, we believe the market is up to fully recognize the value we are building, which makes an exciting opportunity for investors interested in investing in silver today.

Looking ahead, our 2026 calendar is filled with conferences, media engagements and meetings week to week. And we look forward to keeping the market and our shareholders updated as we execute on our strategy to scale a premier Americas-focused silver and critical metals producer. With that, I’ll turn the call back over to the operator for questions.

Operator: [Operator Instructions]. Your first question comes from the line of Justin Chan of SCP Resource Finance.

Q&A Session

Justin Chan: Congrats on a transformational year. My first question is just on your production guidance for the year. Could you give us maybe a bit more breakdown between what you think the ranges are for Cosala and Galena? And then any guidance on sort of how to model that on a production ramping up basis as you commission the shaft, the past plan, et cetera?

Paul Huet: Sorry, Justin. I think I heard the question here — it’s Paul here. I think the breakup between the guidance between Mexico and Idaho, and then the update on the shaft. Was that the question? I think that’s it.

Justin Chan: Yes, first the breakdown between the assets and then the cadence.

Paul Huet: Yes. So look, we’re going to be in the ranges, obviously. So this year is another huge step up for us, right, as we’re transitioning into long haul, we did 9 stopes — 7 to 9 stopes last year, depending on how you measure panels. We’re going to be stepping that up again this year. So looking at 2026, we’re looking at a range of $2.2 million to $2.6 million out of Galena and then the rest is coming out of Mexico, again, Mexico is going to have another big year as we step up about 1.2 to 1.4. So bringing us into that guidance that we put out forward with the projects we’ve got for the shaft, those are big steps. We’ve got two big projects we’ve got to finish up this year. And that’s in order to sustain the long haul and fill the stopes property.

We’ve got to get that batch plant in place. And that’s been one of our projects from day 1, and we’re expecting to have that done this year, which is another big milestone. With respect to the shaft, the parts are almost on site, actually, half of them are. Some of the parts are on site, we’re going to be — we have a — we want to make sure everything is on site so we can make sure that we do a scheduled planned outage. We’ll be planning to be down for 12 days as we upgrade the shaft. These are things that have to get done in order for us to maintain the new product, the new tipping rates that we want to do at that 100 tonnes per hour. So April, those — those will be done.

Justin Chan: Got you. So just to reiterate, so the shaft upgrade basically should be in April and model that into Q2?

Paul Huet: Yes. So, the shaft upgrade done. And then the biggest — our biggest thing is — so that’s about a 10-, 12-day shutdown. The biggest one that’s the back plant in Q4. That’s always been the biggest one because it allows us to fill the stopes much faster. It takes us maybe 6 to 8 days to fill a stope today. We’ll be filling stopes in 24 to 36 hours once those new complexes are built. It become the site to all the construction going on for the new facilities, there’s a lot of work going on at the moment to prepare for that new facility.

Justin Chan: Absolutely. Another one is just with — I guess for the balance sheet and all your CapEx plans, can you give us your capital allocation split for this year? I know 30 to 40 is at Crescent, but maybe there’s more detail you can give.

Warren Varga: Yes, I’m happy to just take that line, it’s all over here. So on the growth side of things, total of — so the $90 million to $120 million includes about $60 million to $80 million growth. That’s growth across all assets. A significant portion of that is going into Crescent this year. We also have about $30 million to $40 million in sustaining that includes some capitalized infill, but the majority of the exploration budget is going to be expensed and will be in that $15 million to $20 million number that we talked about.

Justin Chan: Okay. Got you. And then maybe just one on some of your growth projects that are maybe less into people’s models right now. Do you have an update on Relief Canyon in Nevada? Do you have any plans for that. And then maybe one on the antimony JV?

Paul Huet: Yes. Look, when it comes to Relief Canyon this year, we’re going to be doing a pretty internal study. At the moment, we’re going to be squarely focused at making sure our silver district in Idaho is running where we needed to be. Relief Canyon is going to undergo more of a study this year that we’re looking at.

Justin Chan: Got you. Like a scoping level study something like that?

Paul Huet: Yes, it’s going to be an internal study. So last year, we didn’t have any — we didn’t do any studies. We want to understand some of the ore, some of the resource and some of the freight grabbing stuff. Look, a lot of that stuff is almost identical to what I had me and Mike at Hollister. That material appears to be very, very similar to what we mined before. The grades different so we want to understand it. We’re going to do an internal study led by our COO, Mike Dylan, and we’re going to come back to the market. And we’re going to come back to our board first and decide what’s the best thing to do. We’re getting a lot of inbound calls on it. There’s a lot of interest on it. It needs metal prices. I don’t think we’re ready to just give it away to anybody. It would be crazy to just give this away. There’s opportunity here.

Justin Chan: Got you. And then on the antimony JV, I guess are there any kind of updates or milestones that we should expect in the next, I guess, over the course of this year to account for.

Paul Huet: Yes. So the team has developed. I’m actually here taking this call right now from Bolivia, and you visiting the new plant that was built, I’ll be at the site in probably about 12 hours to go visit a new plant that is feeding the product already into Montana. We’re building something identical to this thing. So the purpose of us being here in Bolivia is to actually see the process, understand it and see what it is we’re trying to replicate in Idaho. So it’s moving out of speed that it was faster than I expected that for sure.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Nicolas Dion of ATB Cormark Capital Markets.

Nicolas Dion: Congrats on the progress at both of your minds. Just 2 questions for me. I guess I’ll start by following on the questions on the guidance. Does your 2026 guidance include anything from Crescent? And then second to that, how should we think about the trajectory of production and costs at Galena looking beyond 2026?

Paul Huet: Yes. I’ll start a bit on the Crescent, and Oliver, you can go on the cost. So Crescent what just need to be reminded that we we’re going to be drilling a lot of Crescent this year. Crescent will have some very small amount, by the way, a small amount because we have to put in secondary egress. The reason this thing can’t go into production yet is because the ramp’s got to be connected. There’s got to be raises and those take us — it’s going to take us a bit of time. At the moment, we’re going to be looking at extending on all — on the vein systems and doing like we did at Fire Creek, just extending the veins understanding the geology. But for now, this year, the tonnes are going to be low. We’ll be mining just on vein, no stoping.

We can’t stope until the secondary gas are put in, and that’s probably a third quarter thing. But we’ll be getting tonnes for sure and ounces out of Crescent just smaller amounts. And then on the costs, Oliver, you can talk a bit about the future.

Oliver Turner: Yes, happy to, Nick. And so just a couple of things in — as we step into the years ahead. We’ve been out there talking about taking Galena back to its historical record production levels, which was, of course, in 2002, the mine did 5.2 million ounces and we said that would take us a couple of years to get there. That firmly remains in place, and that growth plan is still there, so nothing has changed there. And as we do scale production, like a bunch of the things you talked about with respect to the transition to long hole stoping we’re already talking about a 70-30 split that’s progressing extremely well. We’ve got additional byproduct credits, obviously, that are now payable with the new contract in place from tax that will also being netted out against our all-in sustaining cost numbers.

So a steady decline from here onwards as we execute over these next couple of years at Galena is certainly expected in terms of where things can get, we’ll put a guidance at the appropriate period of time for those numbers. But significant cost decreases as we ramp towards that historical production number. Crescent as well as Paul just talked about lots of work going on there. Once we’re into full production there. We expect that to be contributing ore to the Galena mill. That historical PEA that’s out there on Crescent, obviously, not RPEA the prior owner’s PEA from 2015. However, that gives you a good indication of the potential of Crescent. We think we can potentially do better than that, but we need to get in there and do more work. And then, of course, down at Cosala, we’re fully into EC120 now.

Last year, we had a record year despite some limitations geographically in the state, which the team navigated through excellently. We expect another strong year that’s going to be in line with last year at Cosala, but then what we identified here with [ Alikrane ] just north of San Rafael, San Rafael is the mine that we “depleted” last year. Well, now we’ve got a new discovery just north of it, which looks extremely interesting. We haven’t really been able to drill to the extent that we would like to at Cosala. Obviously, we’re allocating some meters there this year, and we’re excited to get in there, but there’s numerous targets, just similar to the Alikrane discovery that we’d like to get into at Cosala and then, of course, really get in there to evaluate the impact on optimizing mining activities.

So Cosala will grow from here as well Galena. So we still expect that ramp up over the years to come.

Nicolas Dion: Okay. That’s helpful. And my second question was going to be on Alikrane at Cosala. Can you maybe elaborate on that discovery a bit more in terms of, I guess, the potential you see there? And how close it is maybe the San Rafael development, et cetera?

Oliver Turner: Yes. So it’s like it’s a brand-new discovery. One of the key things that we really enjoyed in our due diligence of this company was when we went down to Mexico in 2024 during our due diligence several times, obviously, prior to taking over management of the company. We are really impressed by the exploration potential at Cosala. There’s been numerous outcrops that have been drilled there. And I believe the last five of them turned into five mines at Cosala. Of course, that’s not a poor projection on turning future outcrops into mines, but it certainly bodes well for the prospectivity of the region. There are 7 outcropping areas that have been identified that are just screaming to be drilled. And one of those areas in Alikrane has yielded the sort of first discovery under this team, which is a really strong start.

It’s only 600 meters north of San Rafael. Look at the whole district down there, it’s not stretched out over a large area in terms of where these mines are, and they obviously all feed centralized milling. So that’s an area as we continue to drill into it this year could potentially be feeding the milling center there in the years to come. This year we’ll be focused entirely on EC 120 from a production standpoint. That’s the higher grade silver copper. But other metals can come back into the mix there with exploration success like we’ve seen at Alikrane.

Nicolas Dion: Okay. Very good. And last one, I don’t know if it was mentioned, but what was the split of your exploration program between the two mines?

Oliver Turner: Yes. But 3/4 of that will be spent in Idaho and about 1/4 of it we said in Mexico. So give or take, the $5 million would be in Mexico and $15 million in Idaho. And that’s across both at Crescent and at Galena will be drilling aggressively. We’re going to have north of 10 drills drilling across both sites there, which is a huge step up. Those sites haven’t seen more than a couple of drills turning at them for many, many years now. So this is the largest exploration program in this company’s history, 64,000 meters as a reminder for everyone listening. Those are all drilled from underground. So those are essentially short holes in Idaho. So you get a lot of peers points, a lot of data points for that meters there.

And we’ve already seen some strong results with 34 Vein discovery, which went into the new resource, which helped to boost those grades. We saw a grade increase there. 149 is not yet in the resource, but we’re looking to get it in there as well. And then, of course, the new 520 discovery, which is over near the core mine, which is connected to Galena underground is another high-grade discovery. And this mine has been doing this for well over 100 years and certainly looking like it’s going to continue for a long period of time.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Amanda Lewis of Desjardin.

Amanda Lewis: So first, we saw a major increase in resources at Galena. Can you just walk us through what drove that change and what it applies to the long-term mine life at Galena, especially with the present integration? And then just also what drove the large grade increase at Galena.

Oliver Turner: Yes, happy to. Go ahead, Paul.

Paul Huet: Go ahead, Oliver. Go ahead. You go ahead, Oliver. But the one thing that as we’re talking about great, I just want to remind people, one of the things that about last year in the drilling and everything we had. When I think back of 2025, and I think while we actually mined 9 stopes last year. And almost every conference I go into or all that goes into people ask us about the grades, the grades and how the impact of those 9 stopes. We’re carving these things out surgically with long hole we have seen the best grade at Galena in 2 decades. The best grade this mine has seen in 20 years was last year, a record year, the best grade in 20 years while we’re carving out long-hole stopes. I’ll go ahead and talk about the resource, but I think I just wanted to inject that because a lot of the questions we were asked throughout the year were about how will it impact the resource?

How will it impact the grade? And will we see a tremendous drop in grade because of ad evolution. The opposite occurred for us, yes, the best grade in 20 years. So go ahead on the resource.

Oliver Turner: That’s a very good point. I mean one of the key considerations here is as we’re integrating more long-hole stopes in this mine plan, right? We’re shifting from 100% underhand cut and fill or conventional mine to a blend of mechanized long-hole stoping, and there will always be some cut and fill in this mine, but about a 70-30 split. As we baked more of those long-hole stopes into the reserve, we haven’t seen a major impact on grades there, right? So we’re applying long-hole mining stopes there. and the grade is staying very high. Reserve grade is over 500 grams, over 520 grams actually in the silver at Galena. So maintaining very high grade. And one of the key factors for that is the fact that we’re able to mine extremely narrow with these long-hole stopes.

That first stope we took was 1 meter live. We’ve taken numerous narrow long-haul stopes there with the same basically with that we’d be able to mine with cut and fill. So that means that plan dilution is exactly the same as what we’re getting with cut and fill. So really strong performance by the team there. And the mine looks well positioned. One other thing to mention here too is, Galena is in the top 5 highest grade silver mines in the world, and we’re only increasing grades with these discoveries. So one of your questions there was what drove the grade increases. The 34 vein discovery, which we announced midway through last year, when we first drilled that off with that headline hold as 983 grams, well over 3 meters there and widths, triple or minimum mining width.

We initially had a 1 million to 2 million-ounce target on that vein. We put another update out about a month and a bit ago, and we ended up expanding that to 6 million to 7 million-ounce target across multiple different veins plays. That vein system continues to grow. And it’s just an example of what’s been happening with Galena for over 100 years here and will happen well into the future. So we’re quite excited about that inclusion that was included in the resource and helped drive grades up even net of depletion, even with incorporating those long-hole stopes there. We had the 149 vein, 25-kilogram hit, 20 centimeters wide, but you dilute that 5 times, you’re down to a 5-kilogram intercept or cut there. That was not yet included in the resource.

So there’s still more great upsides to come there. And of course, the 600-gram plus hits that we’ve seen at 520 in the core also not included. So the good news on grade improvements in drill it’s being increased with intercepts with the drill bit. That’s real data feeding that that’s increasing those grades, not just in manipulation of cut-off grades in either direction. So very excited about that. Down at Cosala, you also saw reclassification resources. We moved some resources into inferred from M&I, not impacting the mine life whatsoever that we have at EC120. We’re going to be infill drilling those areas and bringing them back into M&I this year. We’ve applied very stringent controls, both in Mexico and in Idaho with this resource, and we’ve done this at multiple different companies before where we build our own resource.

But of course, now we can build our mine plans around going forward. So strong results across the board of both and feeding it with the drill bit and look, we’re going to be doing a ton of drilling this year. So excited about what that can mean for the year-end resource a year from now.

Amanda Lewis: Okay. Great. That’s very helpful. And then just lastly, could you just provide a bit more color on how the long-hole stoping is going? I’m specifically wondering how the mining teams are performing and what areas do you still want to work on?

Paul Huet: Yes. Oliver, I can talk about that. So as we’ve been talking about, we’ve taken out depending on how you look at a 7 or 9 panels already, we are changing up a bit of the way we’re drilling to make sure that we’re very consistent in our blast patterns. We’re this mine hasn’t seen a long-hole for us. So depending on where we are in the mine, we are quickly recognizing and this is not uncommon in any of the mines I’ve worked out in my life. By domain, if the areas are very steep, 89, 90 degrees. We might need one less hole. So we’re just improving or improving are optimizing our drill patterns, our blasting patterns, if we’re down to 72 degrees, we need an extra hole. But what we’re seeing is we’re determining our stope height, our length.

And the intent is that 70% of everything we do going forward will all be long-hole. All we’re doing right now at the moment is optimizing it, though. We just continue to get better and better and better. In the first couple of stopes we have done. And the more efficient we get, we’ll just be moving more tons per day using remote controls instead of drilling and blasting jackwave, which has been done forever. So long-hole is like most people understand. It’s not a complicated thing. It just needs to be done right. You’ve got to have your top that’s good. You got to have your bottoms, that’s good. And we want to make sure that you can check in our case, we check our breakthroughs. So they’re not in the footwall or hanging on and we don’t have a lot of deviation and unnecessary additional dilution.

So pretty simple game in our world, given we’ve done it all over the world.

Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from the line of Wayne Lam of TD Cowen.

Wayne Lam: Maybe just wondering on the new discoveries, obviously, some positive elements that could support a further increase in production. Maybe if you might be able to give us some color on the new 520 vein and the time line on that and whether the core Shack upgrades put the infrastructure and positioned to be ready for production and it’s just a function of drilling and development. But no actual constraints on the processing infrastructure?

Paul Huet: So that upgrade we did in the core motors at the very end of December 2025 was the first time that we ever have redundant motors. So we’re preparing ourselves for using that shaft. There’s still some work to do in the loading pockets and other areas that we have identified. But the new vein 520 has been part of a drill program at core. So given that it’s a brand-new discovery or we’ve got quite a few holes into it already, we’re going to drill it quite a bit and see. Can we access it from the #3 shaft? Or can we access it from core? One of the advantages we have in this district is that core and #3 shaft are connected. In fact, that’s our secondary egress. So we travel across to get out in the event that the #3 shaft is down.

So we will be able to mine that 520 vein from the #3 shaft even when the upgrades come into the #3 shaft, this quarter in March and April as we’re doing these upgrades. So once again, more drilling into it, we’re going to start looking at it. How do we mine it from the best location? So it’s very fresh. It’s very new. We’re quite excited about it. It’s not going to be the only discovery we have. There will be many more. We have 10 new veins here. There’s no doubt there will be more discovery. One of the biggest things we always saw about these assets, they were underexplored, and we needed money and we’re drilling them now. So 520 needs more drilling. We have optionality to mine it from either shaft or #3 shaft and skipping it up either one pause a bit out there because of the work that needs to be done.

Wayne Lam: Okay. Great. Yes. Sounds like a pretty big opportunity. And then maybe at San Rafael, just wondering with the higher silver price than as EC120 ramps up? Is there potential for continued mining there and to add incremental tonnage to the production profile?

Paul Huet: Oliver, let you take that one, I believe.

Oliver Turner: Yes. So San Rafael particularly the higher-grade upper areas, which we were mining towards the end of last year. There are still some portions there that can come into the into the mill there down at Cosala. But the majority of mill feed this year is related to the EC120. Of course, all of this subject to improvement based on drilling and exploration results. And obviously, we’re not going to be putting Alikrane into there within the next 6 months or anything like that, but continued positive drilling intercepts there in the upper portions of San Rafael can add some more feed and then also continued drilling success from underground at EC120 will allow us to get into some of the higher grade areas there as well. So coastal the team executed excellently there last year with a record production for the asset. Looking for similar this year with upside pending drill success there this year? And then obviously, we’ll be scaling it in the years to come.

Operator: Your next question comes from the line of Heiko Ihle of H.C. Wainwright.

Heiko Ihle: Most of them have been answered, but just two quick ones. The 55 170 decline, obviously, should provide a decent amount of efficiencies. When should that fully — I assume this is already in effect, but is there like a bit of a period over when we should see those impacts? And then also just from a cash point of view, given that there is less work now getting done, is there a — should that impact cash costs at all?

Paul Huet: Sorry, Oliver, you’re going to take that I’m not sure I heard the question at all. Go ahead, Oliver.

Oliver Turner: No problem. Yes. So on the decline, that’s currently under development. So we’d expect that to be getting those multiple access points here towards the end of the second quarter. So expect that to have an impact. I mean this is all part of our 2026 mine plan anyways. So it all based into the guidance that we have. Certainly, when it comes to cash costs, I think your — the way that you’re thinking is right there, Heiko, we do expect cost to continue to decline as we go quarter-over-quarter this year. So you’d expect more of a back-end weighting to improvement in cash costs as we ramp up ounces, but also some of these projects that we’ve been working on start to impact the bottom line. One of the things that we did see in the first — what’s it been 14, 15 months, that we’ve been at the helm here.

We did highlight in the release there is on mucking efficiencies. The company was in 2024 and prior moving about 50 tonnes per shift with conventional methods. We’re over 200 tonnes per shift now used employing the remote scoops that we have, haul trucks underground. This is all the new equipment that we put in place last year. And now we actually have a fiber optic system that’s being laid down #3 and it’s going to be developed on different levels there that will give us basically mesh WiFi and communications access all throughout the mine. It seems like something that’s sort of standard in mines these days, and it absolutely is if you’re building a new mine. But this mine hasn’t seen any of that modern technology installed in it. So that’s another very easy target and low-hanging sort of area — of low-hanging fruit that we can target there to improve efficiencies.

That will then link in to the lot of the equipment we’re using and it’s not just mining equipment. It’s fans, it’s ventilators, it’s automating all sorts of parts of the mine and monitoring it in real time. We expect that to continue to improve dispatch efficiency cycle times and productivities across the board. All of that starts to be impacted once that system is in place, which again, is the second half of the year. So you’re going to see steady improvements in efficiencies over the course of this year. You’re going to see costs come down at the operating level. Over the course of this year, all of that kind of works in tandem as tonnes come up ounces come up costs go down, byproducts come up, efficiencies go up. So you’ll see a positive trend this year, Heiko, as we execute quarter-by-quarter, and things will get even better next year, obviously, in ’27.

Heiko Ihle: Fair enough. And then just one quick clarification. How much do you — would you say you spend on fuel at Galena or even across the company per month or per quarter? Just purely out of curiosity.

Oliver Turner: Warren, do you want to take a stab at that one?

Warren Varga: No, I wouldn’t even know at the top of my head. Heiko, I’ll give you a number after the call. There’s not off the top of my head.

Paul Huet: Yes. I mean we just feel, given what prices have been doing, but I assume the impact is fairly small.

Oliver Turner: It is, Heiko. One of the things remember there, of course, is that Galena is integrated into the grid power system, of course, in Idaho. There’s not a lot of diesel consumption at site. Obviously, some of our underground equipment runs on diesel. But broadly speaking, the mine is powered by grid power. So not the same impact that you’d expect to see in a large open pit in terms of diesel cost impact, but we can get you that number.

Paul Huet: And remember, we have a lot of rail, right? Our rail transport a lot of our foreign waste in the mine.

Operator: With no further questions at this time. I will now turn the conference back over to Paul for some closing remarks.

Paul Huet: I just want to thank Oliver and Warren for helping me on the call today. And I really want to take a moment to thank you all, our shareholders. Our teams at both sites, look, we’re coming up for 1 year without an LTA in Mexico as well. That doesn’t happen by accident. So great job to both sites for outstanding safety commitments. And I’m looking forward to 2026. It’s a very exciting year, another big step-up again for us. we continue to deliver on our operational successes. So thank you, everyone. Have a great day, and we’ll talk soon.

Operator: This concludes today’s conference call. You may now disconnect.