Americas Gold and Silver Corporation ($USA)

Well, good morning, everyone. I would like to welcome you to the Americas Gold and Silver First Quarter 2026 Conference Call. Just a reminder that today's call is being recorded. [Operator Instructions] I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Warren Varga, CFO. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, and good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Americas Gold and Silver's First Quarter 2026 Conference Call. This call is being recorded and available on our website's Events page later today. We will also be referencing a slide deck during today's webcast presentation. Joining me today is Oliver Turner, our Executive Vice President of Corporate Development. Paul Huet is on a plane and our CEO and Chairman is on a plane and unable to attend today, but I'm sure he'll listen to us later. I'll begin with a few housekeeping items and then walk through key operational and strategic highlights from our first quarter before turning the call over to Oliver later on. Before we begin, I would like to remind you to review our cautionary statements regarding forward-looking information and non-GAAP measures contained in our second quarter MD&A, news release and presentation slides. Please also note that unless otherwise stated, all dollar figures will be expressed in U.S. dollars throughout this call. Before discussing our operational results, I would like to recognize continued commitment to safety across our operations. On our year-end conference call, I mentioned that our Galena team had achieved a major safety milestone with 1 full year in over 500,000 hours worked without a single lost time accident. I'm very pleased to report that as of April 14, our Cosalá team achieved 1 full year without a single lost time accident as well. Just a great success for both of our teams, and we're very proud of all their efforts at sites. Safety remains a foundation of strong operating culture, and I want to congratulate all of our employees on their commitment and performance. Q1 demonstrated continuing momentum across Americas. Operationally, we delivered a record consolidated silver production of 787,000 ounces and recorded consolidated sales of 830,000 ounces for Q1. Importantly, this production growth was accompanied by solid cost performance in Q1 with cash costs of approximately $24 per ounce sold and all-in sustaining costs of $34 per ounce sold. In addition to strong silver production, we also continue to increase exposure to antimony, a critical metal and with growing strategic importance in North America. We believe Galena remains uniquely positioned as one of the few active domestic sources of antimony production in the United States. The strong start to the year positions us in an excellent position to achieve our 2026 consolidated production guidance of 3.2 million to 3.6 million silver ounces at an average all-in sustaining cost of $30 to $35 per ounce sold. As a reminder, consolidated total capital expenditures for 2026 are targeted to be between $90 million to $120 million, including $30 million to $40 million to be deployed at the Crescent Mine. Over the past year, our team has made four major new high-grade discoveries at Galena, highlighting the significance of untapped potential across the district. Our most recent discovery, the 43L-TJ Vein Complex was announced just 2 weeks ago and includes six new high-grade silver, copper antimony veins located close to existing infrastructure. Several of the high-grade intercepts are shown on the slide, including 1,392 grams per tonne silver, 1.5% copper and 1.5% antimony over 1.9 meters. We continue to see antimony associated with many of these high-grade silver systems, further reinforcing the strategic importance of the Galena complex as both a high-grade silver asset and a growing domestic source of antimony for the U.S. and for the world. At Cosalá, our exploration teams have also delivered encouraging results with the new El Alacrán discovery located just 600 meters north of San Rafael. The discovery, which was announced 6 weeks ago, intersected multiple silver, gold, copper intercepts, including 69 grams per tonne silver, 0.2 grams per tonne gold and 0.2% copper over 28 meters. Follow-up drilling is already underway. The recent discoveries across our operations highlight the significant untapped potential within our asset base. To capitalize the opportunity in front of us, we've allocated the largest exploration budget of $15 million to $20 million and the largest exploration drilling campaign in the company's history with over 64,000 meters to be drilled across our properties. The recent exploration success also becomes even more meaningful when viewed alongside our recently announced updated silver M&I resource announced earlier this year. At Galena, measured and indicated silver resources increased 19% year-over-year to 88 million ounces, while grades improved by 21% to 501 grams per tonne silver. On a consolidated basis, silver M&I mineral resources increased by 10% to 116 million ounces with grades increasing by 30% to -- sorry, 240 grams per tonne silver. We believe this growing high-grade resource base provides a strong foundation to support our long-term growth plans. For more details, please refer to the America's March 30, 2026 news release and the NI 43-101 technical reports supporting the mineral resource and reserve estimates for Galena Complex and coastal operations, which were filed on the company's profile on SEDAR+ yesterday, May 14, 2026. Let me now walk you through some of the major growth initiatives currently underway across the Galena complex. Starting with the paste backfill plant, progress continues to advance well. Major equipment is currently in fabrication with delivery starting in June 2026. Site preparation is nearly complete and commissioning remains targeted for the fourth quarter 2026. Once operational, the pace plant is expected to increase backfill cycle times by approximately 250% and support increased long-haul stopes productivity with output being of about 93 tons per hour. Another critical project is the #3 Shaft, which has been recently completed. Phase 1 is now completed -- sorry, both phases are now completed, both Phase 1 and Phase 2. These upgrades are expected to increase hoisting through -- by approximately 150% to roughly 105 tonnes per hour and increase total capacity to roughly 1,350 tonnes per day, a significant step forward for the operations. This is a critical step in derisking our growth and enabling higher ore production into 2026 and beyond. We are also making strong progress on digital infrastructure investments. Fiber optic communications are currently being installed down the #3 shaft, enabling real-time equipment tracking, improved automation and full mine connectivity. Full coverage is targeted by the fourth quarter of 2026. At the same time, engineering and minor fabrication is underway to repurpose the Galena Shaft into a long-term infrastructure corridor supporting paste, power, air, water and electrical systems, all important for supporting larger scale mining operations in the future. On the processing side, Galena mill upgrades are progressing. Crusher upgrades have now been completed. Flotation cells have been ordered, and we continue progressing toward restarting the third mill. The goal is to increase total milling capacity from 750 tonnes per day to roughly 1,200 tonnes per day by the end of 2026. At the recently acquired Crescent Mine, we also continue to make strong progress following the acquisition. All critical systems have been restored. More than 650 feet of development was completed in the first quarter and drilling activities have begun. An additional 2,000 feet of development is planned during the second quarter to support resource expansion and future mining. Overall, we are beginning to see tangible results from our growth capital projects that are positioning the Galena complex for a meaningful step change in production for -- by the end of 2026. These advancements, combined with our strong balance sheet and growing resource base, position Galena as a key long-term driver of value creation for the company. Now going to the financial results. Following the market close yesterday, we released our unaudited condensed interim consolidated financial statements and MD&A for the 3 months ended March 31, 2026. These documents are available on our website as well as under the company's profile on SEDAR+ and EDGAR. Revenue for the quarter was $68 million, an increase of 84% compared to the prior quarter and an increase of 189% over Q1 2025, primarily due to the silver production -- the higher silver production discussed earlier and higher realized silver prices during the quarter. Our average realized silver price increased by 148% from Q1 2025 to Q1 2026. The average realized silver price was approximately $80 per ounce for Q1 2026 compared to approximately $32 per ounce in Q1 2025. This is largely comparable to the average London silver price with the difference being the timing of our concentrate sales during the quarter. Our net income was $10 million or $0.03 per share for Q1 2026, an increase from a net loss of $20 million or $0.08 per share for Q1 2025. This is primarily attributed to the higher net revenue that I mentioned earlier and a higher gain on derivatives, offset in part by higher cost of sales and the impact of higher forward gold and silver curve prices, which increased the unrealized present value of the company's metals contract liabilities on our balance sheet. Adjusted earnings for the quarter were $20 million or $0.06 per share, which represents an increase of over 260% over the Q1 2025 loss of approximately $12 million or $0.05 per share. Adjusted EBITDA was $34 million or $0.10 per share, also a significant improvement over the Q1 2025 loss of $5.5 million or $0.02 per share. Our liquidity is in a very strong position to address our capital plans with cash balance of approximately $122 million and working capital of $67 million at the end of the quarter. Capital expenditures were approximately $23 million during Q1, mainly due to the development initiatives at the Galena Complex that have already been discussed in support of our aggressive growth plans. I will now turn the call over to Oliver.

Thank you very much, Warren, and good morning, everyone. Over the past year, America has experienced a significant increase in both analyst coverage and trading activity, reflecting the growing interest in the company and the progress being made across the business. Today, the company is now covered by eight analysts compared to just two analysts a little over a year ago, marking a substantial increase in both market visibility and institutional awareness. When we take the trading liquidity, the numbers are truly staggering. From January 1 to May 8, 2026, Americas traded at an average of approximately CAD 32.8 million per day, comparing to approximately CAD 1.9 million per day during the same period in 2025. This represents an over 1,600% increase in daily traded volume. On the U.S. NYSE Exchange, we're now trading over USD 48 million worth of volume, which is a 1,300% improvement compared to the same period last year. So combined, we're now trading north of CAD 100 million per day. And what does this mean? This now allows us to be owned by some of the largest mining investors in the world. And I'm very pleased to say that we now have most of them on our register. It's a big step forward for Americas Gold and Silver as we continue to build our case as a premier silver and antimony investment vehicle for institutions globally. And lastly, we're now trading with a significant beta to silver price of over 1.5x, which is one of the strongest in the entire silver sector. This means that for investors searching for a way to invest into a silver vehicle with strong outperformance of the underlying metal, USA shares are a terrific place to be. With that, I'll turn the call back to Warren for closing remarks.

Thank you, Oliver. Overall, Q1 represented a very strong start to 2026 and continue to demonstrate the momentum we are building across the business. We delivered record silver production and sales, advanced several key growth initiatives at the Galena Complex, strengthened our balance sheet and continue to generate strong exploration across our operations. As we move through the remainder of 2026, our focus remains on safely executing our growth strategy, increasing production capacity and continuing to unlock the long-term value of our asset base. We believe the combination of high-grade silver exposure, increasing domestic antimony production and significant operational growth potential positions Americas as one of the more unique precious metal stories in the sector today. Thank you again for joining us. We appreciate your continued interest and support in Americas Gold and Silver. All right. Operator, I think we're ready to open up to some questions here.

[Operator Instructions] First up is Dalton Baretto from Canaccord.

My first one is on the Galena Complex. So it sounds like you're setting this operation up to be running at 1,200 short tons per day, I think, by the end of this year. And I just want to clarify, first of all, are you permitted to go at that level? And then secondly, what needs to happen to get you to that rate? And what sort of time frame are you thinking?

Yes. Thanks, Dalton. I'll take that one. So yes, in terms of where we plan to exit the year, it's always easier to talk about ore tonnes because yes, we are moving -- waste out of the mine, debottlenecking some areas and of course, moving waste around to get back into CRF stopes until we have the paste fill plant up and running. But on an ore tonne basis, we're looking to exit this year at around 650 short tonnes per day. That's the number that we've been striving towards over the course of the year. Of course, we started the year just over 400 tonnes per day, and that's up from about 270 tonnes per day towards the end of 2024. So big step-ups year-over-year. The most important aspect of getting there, of course, is the hoisting, -- the upgrades that we've now completed to the #3 shaft, the Phase 1 upgrades are complete. Phase 2 is also just recently being completed, which are big step-ups in hoisting capacity. In terms of moving material underground, obviously, we've got a lot more equipment underground and then the ramp-up of long-hole stoping, of which we've now taken 10 panels are all critical. But the most important step towards ramping up El long-haul stoping even further, of course, is that paste fill plant, which we're on track to have commissioning in the fourth quarter of this year. Regarding permitting, fully permitted for everything we have in our growth plan, so no problems there whatsoever.

And then just maybe switching gears to the antimony side of things. Just frame that for me from a strategic as well as an economic perspective, how relevant is it really to the broader silver story? And then I guess part B of that question that you can maybe answer at the same time is presumably some of your peers and neighbors in the region are also mining tetrahedrite. Is there an opportunity to expand that JV to be sort of a much bigger regional effort?

Yes. Thanks, Dalton. Good questions. And I start off with Cosalá. Look, last year, Cosalá delivered a record 1.2 million ounces of silver there, and that was during a transition out of San Rafael into the EC120 mine, which we're now fully underway with declaring commercial production earlier this year. Really strong performance by the team down there last year. We're very proud of them. And of course, this year, we're going to be producing somewhere in the region of 1.1 million to 1.3 million ounces of silver there. One of the most exciting things about Cosalá, going forward, of course, is not only EC120 and that delivering year after year, but of course, is the exploration upside that we have. Warren talked about it earlier, the discovery that we announced at El Alacrán, which is about 600 meters north of San Rafael. That's just one of several outcropping areas across the property, which we're really excited about. There's about five outcropping areas that have been identified, which we're very eager to get drilling into. Just to take a little step back in history, there's been three major outcropping areas at Cosalá that have been drilled off and those have actually turned into mines. So some pretty strong returns right there. So we'll continue drilling out at El Alacrán, getting some real exploration dollars put into the ground there, and it's certainly an important part of the story for sure. When it comes to switching back up to Idaho here and talking about tetrahedrite in the Silver Valley and beyond in Idaho, our approach to that, of course, we've announced the JV with U.S. antimony. There is a lot of flexibility in that facility. So the facility that we're going to be building, which we're targeting to commission by midway through next year, about 18 months from our original announcement date on track right there. that facility is going to have flexibility in terms of the scale of feed that accepts. We'll certainly obviously have feed or capabilities of putting enough of our own capacity through rather, but we'll also be flexing that facility with the ability to add an additional line if we find other sources of feed. We want to be collaborative with everybody in Idaho and certainly others in the United States. We'd love to have all this consolidated in just a few facilities rather than everybody building their own. So that's something we're in active discussions with. We'll see how all of that goes. Of course, our primary focus is going to be putting our own feed through there. And these are not large facilities. These facilities are measured in single-digit tons per hour, not talking about 1,000-plus tonne per day. So a very small facility, but we'll be open to collaboration with others.

Your next question is from Allison Carson, Desjardins.

So my question is just a little bit more on the paste fill plant. It sounds like everything is progressing well. And I know you touched on it, but I was wondering if you could give us just a little bit more color on how you expect it to play into improving mining flexibility, cycle times and just overall productivity at Galena.

Yes, for sure. I'll start off there. And I know we also have Evan Pelletier of course, who's at the helmet both operations and driving this forward. So I'll ask him to step in just afterwards to add some more color here. But starting off, everything is on track, as I said, for commissioning in the fourth quarter. We've got all of our specific pieces of equipment that are required on order that's expected to be delivered around midyear. Of course, we'll have to get that commission and get the reticulation system underground. We do it to have a significant impact on times. We've talked a couple of times about it being north of 250% there in terms of cycle time improvement. There will also be improvements in primary and secondary panel mining as well. So a lot of areas where that's going to help us. It's going to help us reduce costs. It's going to allow us to move more tonnes underground. So it will be a very significant step forward for us. Evan, I don't know if you have any more specifics you'd like to touch on there.

No, I think that was great. And that was it. Congrats on the quarter.

[Operator Instructions] We'll go next to Omeet Singh from SCP Resource Finance.

My question was around Galena grades. So obviously, you printed 284 grams per tonne for this quarter. I'm trying to understand how much of that is driven by the shift towards long-haul stoping or that mix between Galena and tetrahedrite ore. So could you speak to that maybe so I could just model it better going forward?

Yes. Thanks for your question, Omeet. Evan, would you like to answer that question on the grades at Galena and what we can expect going forward?

Yes. Sure, absolutely. Thanks for the question, Omeet. The grades overall are going to keep on climbing over here. The decline in grade was not due to the dilution in long-haul stopes. It was mostly mining more Galena as we were in those areas for the quarter. But the tetrahedrite is definitely around and the grades are there, and we're still going to see some higher grades coming out of Galena.

That's helpful, thank you very much.

Omeet, one of the things to -- as we transition and move forward as well, just like what Evan said, it depends on which area that we're mining in. This mine has been set up to focus on silver lead for a considerable period of time. And we all know that, that is where the slightly lower grades are. So phenomenal silver grades, but slightly lower in comparison to that tetrahedrite or the silver copper material. One of the objectives this year and moving into next year, as we put more of the waste development in, that's what a significant component of what our capital spend is this year and next year. We're setting up more and more of those silver copper stopes. So as we transition to long-haul stoping, we're also transitioning into more of a focus on the silver copper. So just like Evan said, we can expect to see continued strong grade performance and increases from here.

That's helpful. Appreciate it. And then I guess another question here. This would be regarding payabilities of your antimony. Could you speak to that a little bit? Because I'm seeing that your realized price is actually quite close to spot. Maybe share with me a bit about how payabilities are at Galena for antimony.

Yes. So Omeet, we're happy to have a conversation offline with you about that. There are certain things we're able under the contract to discuss and other ones that were not. So I think it's best if we have a follow-up call on that one, and we can get on a conversation with Warren as well.

Your next question is from Dalton Baretto, Canaccord.

Where are we at with Crescent? Do you still see that mine ramping up midyear? What sort of mining rates do you think you can get to this year as well as on a steady-state basis?

Thanks, Dalton. Evan, I might ask you to jump in there. I know you've been there very recently, obviously.

Yes. Yes. Thanks, Dalton, for the question. Crescent is progressing very, very well. We're averaging -- on average, we've done [Technical Difficulty] feet of development as of now the [Technical Difficulty] strides. We've got a bunch of new gear on site. We've also eliminated the use of generators. So the diesel generator and compressors were on site. We ran power lines. We have fiber ops. The plan is to connect the two ramps this year, which is the [ Countus ] and the BC4. As soon as that's done, then we can start falling into production as we'll have a second means of egress. We see early in the next year in '27, pulling some muck -- some ore, sorry, out of Crescent. The most exciting thing about the Crescent is the historic mining that was done at depths. We've seen some grades down there that was mined at 300 ounces to the tonne. So we're setting up doing drilling, finding these areas and doing some engineering on pushing another decline potentially to getting even deeper in the future.

That's great. And then maybe I can just ask very quickly around the situation in Sinaloa. It seems to be deteriorating pretty rapidly. Any impact to operations or shipments, that sort of thing?

Thanks, Dalton. Yes. No, in terms of our operations, everything has been okay. Obviously, we're aware of the situation in the state and have been since the beginning of this, which has been going for quite a period of time right now. So we have our own protocols in place there in terms of how we respond to things. And otherwise, we've got our heads down. We're mining, we're producing a concentrate and get the trucks to the coast when they can.

[Operator Instructions] And once again, everyone, that is all the time we have for questions today. I'd like to hand the conference back over to Oliver Turner for any additional or closing remarks.

Yes. Thank you very much, operator. And I'd just like to say thanks to everyone who's listening on the call, no matter which time zone you're in, we appreciate the support. It's obviously been quite the transformation so far at Galena. And what I would say is we are only getting started here. There's a lot more to come. This is an extremely large system, which we're in the process of unlocking step by step, quarter-by-quarter, and we're excited to demonstrate what we think we can do with these assets. So thanks again for your support. Great silver market to be an investor in, and we're looking forward for many positive quarters to come. Thank you.

Once again, everyone, that does conclude today's conference. We would like to thank you all for your participation. You may now disconnect.