McEwen Mining at John Tumazos Conference: Copper and Gold Prospects

On Tuesday, 10 June 2025, McEwen Mining (NYSE:MUX) took center stage at the John Tumazos Very Independent Research Virtual Conference, showcasing its strategic focus on copper and gold assets. The company highlighted its promising Los Azules copper project in Argentina, while also addressing challenges such as financing needs and market volatility. McEwen Mining’s stock has seen significant growth, reflecting investor confidence in its strategic direction.

Key Takeaways

• McEwen Mining anticipates production of 120,000 to 140,000 gold equivalent ounces this year.
• The Los Azules project is positioned to become a major copper producer, with significant investment from global players.
• The company plans an IPO for McEwen Copper, contingent on feasibility study completion and regulatory approvals.
• McEwen Mining’s stock has surged by 221% since September 2022, driven by its copper story.
• Over $450 million has been raised to advance the Los Azules project.

Financial Results

• McEwen Mining projects a positive cash flow of $30 million this year.
• The anticipated all-in sustaining cost is up to $2,000 per ounce.
• McEwen Copper’s value is estimated at $17 to over $54 per share, with McEwen Mining owning 46%.
• The company requires over $3 billion in financing for Los Azules, with 40% expected from equity.

Operational Updates

• Transition at the Fox Complex from Frum Mine to Stock Mine aims to reduce costs and increase production.
• Los Azules is one of the largest copper resources outside major mining companies, strategically located with secured environmental permits.
• Exploration has identified seven new targets, with significant expansion potential in the region.

Future Outlook

• Production is expected to exceed 225,000 ounces in the next five years, driven by developments at the Stock Mine.
• The McEwen Copper IPO is planned for late July or Q3, pending feasibility study and RIGI approval.
• Strategic partnerships are being sought to finance Los Azules, with potential contributions from Rio Tinto and Stellantis.

Q&A Highlights

• Financing for Los Azules is a priority, with a mix of equity and debt anticipated.
• The Tartan Lake Mine is viewed as a long-term investment, with exploration prioritized to build value.
• The board of McEwen Copper is seeking a new member with experience in Andean copper mines.
• Rob McEwen expressed optimism about rising gold prices and the potential for long-term value creation through exploration.

For a deeper dive into McEwen Mining’s strategic plans and financial performance, refer to the full transcript.

Full transcript - John Tumazos Very Independent Research Virtual Conference:

John: Good morning, all. We’re so pleased to host Michael Ametting, the VP and general manager of McEwen Copper, who is the wonderful financier that brought Stellantis from Argentina into finance the Los Azules project. It wasn’t some fancy investment banker. It was Michael’s LinkedIn message. And Rob McEwen, the chairman and chief owner of McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper.

Please bring us up to speed on all the good news.

Rob McEwen, Chairman and chief owner, McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper: Thank you, John. Good morning to everyone. McEwen Mining, symbol MUX on the New York and Toronto Stock Exchange. I believe we offer a unique combination of precious metal production and exposure to a massive copper deposit. What you’re seeing on the slide is the start of a new chapter at our Fox Complex, and this is the stock mine.

It’s one of the mines we’re operating at. And we’re driving a ramp to the underground that will usher in a new era where we won’t have any metal streams on our production. The distance to the mine to the mill is you can see the mill right above the portal or the decline rather than a 35 kilometer haul. The ore is softer, so we can process a greater volume of ore through, and the grade’s about the same. So we’re expecting an improvement in our costs and an increase in production from the stock complex.

The other insert is a picture of copper cathode. And as John mentioned, Mike is managing the operations of McEwen Copper, and we plan to be producing London grade a London Metal Exchange grade a copper cathode that’ll be won’t have to go to a smelter, go right from the mine directly to the customer. And we’ll talk about that more. So the next slide is just your customary safe harbor statement. You can read it at your leisure.

Next slide is just a curious owl looking for an investment. Are you looking for? It’s supposed to hear us. Next slide. The time to be looking at commodities is now, and this is looking at a fifty year fifty five year history of the commodities Goldman Sachs Commodity Index relative to the S and P 500.

And you can see their low points, and right now, off to the bottom right is where commodities are relative to financial assets. And I believe that’s turning, and this is an opportune time to be increasing your exposure to commodities in your portfolio. The next slide is just showing the price of copper since 02/2010, and it seems to be breaking out of a range and possibly heading higher. We can see the positive factors here. There’s the growth of electrical vehicles, the use of renewable energy, the use of copper in in that infrastructure, as well as AI and data centers, big users.

There hasn’t been a lot of investment in this sector, so there’s projected deficits going forward and then bringing new minds on for extended periods of time. So that deficit may exist for a while. The next slide is just showing that was copper. Next slide is just looking at a very long history of a 129 of gold in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. You can see on this slide there have been periods when one or two ounces have bought the Dow, currently 13 ounces buying the Dow.

But somewhere in the future, I believe you’re gonna see gold of one or two ounces buying the dow again. If that were to happen overnight, you’d be looking at $20,000 an ounce, but at two ounces of buying the DAO. The next slide is just showing how gold relative to gold shares is breaking out gold in in the gold color on this graph, these two lines, and the Dow below it. So gold is has broken out relative to the Dow. And one sector that’s really lagged behind gold are gold equities.

And you’re seeing here gold in gold and then the GDX, the ETF measuring the senior gold stocks is in the darker color, and the juniors in red. There are times in a cycle, gold cycle, where the juniors outperform the seniors, and you can see them lifting with the price of gold. But I think it’s an attractive time to be adding some juniors to your portfolio. And McEwen Mining happens to be one of those juniors. I think we’re attractively priced.

We have good trading liquidity on New York, averaging better than 600,000 shares a day. We have a massive copper auction. If you go to the next slide, Mike, our gold production and resources are increasing, So we have good leverage to the metal precious metals. My ownership is significant over 16% and maybe went to 15 now and take a dollar a year, and we have good exploration upside. My personal investment is over 200,000,000 between McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper.

There’s 54,000,000 shares outstanding, and you can see the ownership distribution in the pie chart and the top holders over on the right. Our assets are in The Americas. You can go to the next slide, please. The Fox Complex, which is pictured on the front of this presentation, is located in Timmins, Canada, a very well established gold mining district. Gold Bar is in Nevada, also a prime gold district, just south of the what was Barracks Cortez mine, now Nevada Gold’s Cortez property.

We also have a grassroots copper project in Nevada. We have a mine on care and maintenance in Mexico, a small gold silver mine, a joint venture underground gold silver mine in Argentina operated by our partners, Hosh Shield. We own 49%. And Los Azules, which is our large copper project, which I’ll Mike and I will talk about shortly. The next slide is just showing our share price since September of twenty two when we started financing closing our financing on McHugh and Copper.

And we lifted out of the group of gold stocks in terms of performance with some global players coming into our copper story. One was the largest car manufacturer in the world, Stellantis, that John mentioned earlier on that Mike brought into the fray, and Rio Tinto, the largest mining company. Their investments are substantial. And since that date of September 22, we’ve raised just over $450,000,000 to advance our copper project in Argentina. You can see here over on the right that since September 22, McEwen Mining is up 221%, and I think there’s a lot more room on the upside.

I’ll just speak briefly about the financing for McEwen Copper. On the next slide, you can see we’ve done four financings since August 22. And on the right hand column is McEwen Mining owns 46%, after all of these financings. And on a per share basis, it is, valued at $8.60. That’s the investment that McEwen Mining the value of the investment of McEwen Mining’s interest.

Now on the next page, we’re looking at what we management thinks is the value of McEwen copper, and it has three parts to it. Our McEwen mining, McEwen copper is 46%. As you saw on the previous slide, there was a value of $8 and 6%, and that was an $8.47 kept in there, but the base is $8.60. If we look at several other properties you’re going to hear about that are in the same province that BHP and Lundin Mining own. If we were to take half the value, we could get up to $29 a share of value.

A royalty portfolio of six nonperforming royalties, the largest of which is one and a quarter percent on our Los Azules copper project that over its life would generate about in excess of 400,000,000. We’ve valued that at 35,000,000 or 65¢ a share. And then we have our gold and silver properties, and we’ve taken a discount of 50% on a peer group average enterprise value per annual production. And you have an $8 there. So our low is 17, and yesterday, we closed at $9.52 and a high of over $54 a share.

A considerable improvement over where we are right now. So jump into McEwen Copper and then just introduce its location. It’s in the Andes along the border with Chile and Argentina. It’s in the province of San Juan, which is shown in orange on this chart, and there are a number of large deposits in San Juan and also along the spine of South America. Chile and Peru produce 40% of the world’s annual production of copper, and Argentina is an emerging district that I think one day could produce as much as Peru.

But that’s probably fifteen years from now. I’d like to move into the next slide to give you a sense of the landscape and the vision we have for McEwen Copper. After that, Mike will carry on with the presentation. I don’t hear any sound.

Michael Ametting, VP and general manager, McEwen Copper: Okay. How do I enable the sounds?

Rob McEwen, Chairman and chief owner, McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper: Let me just get Casper. Casper, could you help my key? Has no sound.

Michael Ametting, VP and general manager, McEwen Copper: Maybe you can. Casper, if I put on the the video, it doesn’t it doesn’t sound.

John: John, can you help with that? I think the issues are on your end, and, Michael, it’d be better if you narrated in place of the narration of the video.

Michael Ametting, VP and general manager, McEwen Copper: Okay.

Rob McEwen, Chairman and chief owner, McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper: Wonder why.

Michael Ametting, VP and general manager, McEwen Copper: So what we’re going to see is an overview of the project, where it’s located. McEwen Copper is planning the regenerated copper mine in Argentina. It goes without saying that we need to transform industry to provide us with the materials we need for renewable society, but without the historic legacy of environmental damage. Copper is one resource that will only grow in importance as we replace fossil fuels with a decarbonized world. Electric cars, wind turbines, batteries, solar panels, and the computers that power everything all require copper.

And that copper needs to be green copper, carbon neutrally and ecologically responsible. When we started the project, we began by drafting a set of principles for the project that guide the team in its decision making and approach. We did this work informed by the place itself. The Andes are an incredibly beautiful and sensible ecosystem. So we knew it was our duty to be stewards of this place, protecting habitats, glaciers, waters, and life itself, while at the same time getting the copper resources that we need.

So we’ve been thinking carefully about the future and our eventual legacy. We then focused on the people, the miners, and the community itself. And we have been working into creating a new experience for the people living in San Juan and its surroundings. Over the life of the mine, over 1,000 high quality jobs will be created, and these will be jobs unlike any others in the industry. We think people were covered working for McEwen Copper because not only do we focus on safety, but also on dignity and livability, creating a mining infrastructure that is an oasis in the sky.

Here is our vision for the mine camp of the future. Beautiful, inspiring, and bold in biosphere of health and life.

Rob McEwen, Chairman and chief owner, McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper: How is that?

Michael Ametting, VP and general manager, McEwen Copper: Wow. After a long day of work, our people will return to a place completely powered by the sun and that create an ideal condition for rest and sleep, recuperation, and the daily needs of miners. Imagine a place that grows its own food, collects and treats its own water, and generates energy without emissions on a on a giant solar superstructure. We are placing specific emphasis on indoor quality, acoustics, and stress reduction with a focus on social justice, equity, and even beauty. This would be a place to live and thrive while earning a living.

We’re designing an ecological water treatment valley that not only completely protect downstream water quality, but allows for the creation of new habitat and the enhancements of Vegas. Partnerships with local universities and scientists will see new advances in natural phytoremediation and water treatment. This to ensure that water will always be self safe and healthy. Our entire mine operations will be powered by on-site and off-site natural naturally generated energy where possible conveyors and fleets would be electrified and plugged into this network of clean energy with batteries instead of diesel for backup generation. At Los Azules, we are not building a mill.

Instead, we’re advancing heap leaching technologies to extract metals chemically in a completely closed loop process with radical reductions in energy and water use. And finally, a state of the art renewable powered electrowinning facility will produce pure copper So that from the pit to the product, our investors and customers know that sustainability formed every single step, and they can count on that for their own ESG objectives. Our planning process continues, and we look forward to share more innovations as we develop this amazing project forward. At McEwen Copper, we are striving to deliver the greenest copper producer in the world. Okay.

So Los Azules is a very big project. It’s currently estimated to be the largest measured by resource size. And taking out the projects that are owned by major, it’s the biggest copper that can be developed. Here you see the ownership structure. McEwen Mining owns 46.4% of McEwen Copper.

McEwen Copper owns 100% of Anders Copperasium Mina, which owns 100% of Sassoules. Celantis, as what we already mentioned before, owns 18. Rio Tinto, through their new venture, which could significantly impact positively the future of our project owned 17%, and ROP owned slightly below 13% with the others owning the rest. Now how do we compare versus other projects in the province? We have chosen two comparisons.

We have chosen Rosemarie and Filo del Sol, which recently joined with together with with BHP and Lundin into a joint venture to form the Vicuna District. Los Azules is at 3,100 to 3,600 meter altitude. Rosemarie is at 4,000 to 4,900 meter altitude. Pilot Sol is 4,900 to four 5,400 meter altitude. Why is that relevant?

We are significantly lower. We have less issues with machinery operating at altitude and with people that have less productivity at altitude. We are close to infrastructure. On the lower left hand side, you see we are 70 kilometer from the provincial highway and from a 500 kV energy line, only operated one thirty two. Rosmaria is 244 kilometers from infrastructure and period soil, 77 kilometers from Chile.

When you compare our copper resources and grades with the combined Rosmarie and Filo resource, you can see that while the resource size about four times hours two times hours, we are about valued at about only twice half of the sorry. Let me start that again. I got confused. So while we have about half the size of Rosemarie and Philo combined in terms of resource size, we only one quarter of the value when it comes to valuation. Rosemarie and Philo came together at a deal valued at $4,500,000,000.

According to our PEA, and I have to say, our feasibility study is pending, and you can expect slightly smaller resource and higher cost per pound and higher CapEx, we compare very favorably to Rosemarie and Filo at the time of the PEA with $1.07 per pound of copper, while Rosemarie at $1.55 and field soil, $1.54. Now what happened since the PEA came out? We see an increase in copper price. The PEA was using $3.75, and we are currently seeing price above $4.50 per pound of copper. We have increased knowledge of the mineral resources.

We added 97,900 meters of resource drilling. We added structural interpretations to limit the resource modeling. We have converted the majority of the PA mineable resource material into measured indicated mineral resources. And what we also see is that we see increase in capital cost. Internationally, we see a capital cost increasing by about 20%.

In Argentina, while deregulation is is working and inflation control is working, and the region is incentivizing capital attrition. However, since early twenty twenty four, US dollar costs have inflation outpacing devaluation. So we have seen inflation in Argentina up at 43% since January 2024 versus 45% of devaluation from January to April year. Now McEwen copper, and you see here in dark gray, the the mineable pitch out from the PEA and light gray, the resource pitch out has expansion potential to the north, to the south, and the depth. You see two holes to the north that go about 400 meters to the north and stick outside of the mineable pit shell, and they show 0.42% over 480 meters well below the the resource pit shell.

And we have seen 0.2% over 202 meters and 400 meters further to the north. To the south, we have seen 600 meters worth of expansion potential. We have seen seen 0.3% over 70 meters in in in the hole closer to the to the pit. Then we have seen 0.21% over 276 meters and 0.23% over 180 meters, 600 meters to the south. What what did we do over the last two years?

Over the last two years, our project was focusing on upgrading upgrading our resource and developing the project. But now since about eighteen months, we have started to do additional exploration, prospecting and exploration. And at the end of the last season, we have done a metallotilic metallotilic, an empty helicopter geophysics survey, and we have identified seven exploration targets with key elements of a large porphyry systems. We have seen multiple intrusive, porphyry copper alteration at surface, porphyry copper veining, porphyry copper geochemical signatures, and I already mentioned geophysics. In the white, you can see the pit outline from Los Azules.

You see all the other targets within our property. To give you an idea, our property span about 32,000 hectares, and we have explored about 3,000 hectares so far so so far. That means we have significant exploration potential going forward. Then end of last year, we received the most important permit for a mine to go forward. We received our environmental permit from the local regulator, which allows us to construct and operate the future mine.

February 11, we have, presented ourselves to be, included in the RIGI. We’re currently awaiting the approval of the RIGI. The RIGI is the large infrastructure investment regime created by the Malay administration in July of last year. What does this mean? It means a corporate tax reduction from 35 to 25%, halving of tax on dividends from seven to 3.5%, freedom to export products with exemption of export duties after three years, currently on copper 4.5%, almost immediate recovery of VAT, and most importantly, export proceeds are freely available for big projects one hundred percent three years after the startup of the project, the startup of the project being defined as the time of the approval of the project.

And all of that package in thirty years stability with the possibility to litigate not only in in Argentina, but also in front of international arbitration courts, creating additional stability for projects investing in Argentina under this regime. Now Argentina has fast become an attractive mining investment destination since Malay was elected in December, and we have seen that Malay has governability. He was able to push through the large foreign investment incentive regime that was approved, which significantly increased Los Azules NPV versus the PEA. Everything else remaining constant. We have seen transactions such as BAP BHP, the world’s largest miner, completing the 4,500,000,000.0 copper deal with Lundin Mining to form out of Pilo Del Sol and Rosmaria, the Vicuna district.

We saw the signature of United States signing memorandum of understanding with regards to strengthening the corporation on critical minerals. We saw Rio Tinto, the world’s largest miner, buying Acadium for Argentina for 6,700,000,000.0 for lithium mines mostly in Argentina, some in Australia and in Canada. We saw Rio Tinto coming in not only in our project, but also buying an option on Aldebaran’s Altaic copper deposit, which is slightly south of us. They can acquire 20% by making stage payments for a totaling of 250,000,000. And then on December 12, Rio Tinto announced announced the 2,500,000,000.0 expansion of its Lincoln lithium mine in Salta.

On May 4, we saw the massive BHP Lundin release of the resource estimate estimate for Vicuna. Okay. Rob, you would like to take over on the 2024 production and 2025 guidance?

Rob McEwen, Chairman and chief owner, McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper: Yes. Yes. Thank you, Mike. You haven’t gone horse. Thank you.

So here we are looking at if you’re going down on the left hand side, consolidated production from our various mines. GEO stands for gold equivalent ounces because we’re producing, in some cases, silver as well as gold and putting it all on a gold equivalency basis. So for this year, we’re looking at total production between a 120 and a hundred hundred and forty thousand ounces with an all in sustaining cost of up to $2,000 an ounce. And then it breaks down the operations Gold Bar, Fox Complex, and the San Jose Mine, which is the joint venture we have. And in Gold Bar, the two quarters, we’re look we’ll be looking at higher cash cost and all in sustaining as a result of some stripping we’re doing to access an area of mineralization and expect the guidance here for the year to be achieved by year end.

Fox, similarly, it’s in a transition. We’re moving from mining at one mine called the Frum Mine and going to transitioning over to the stock mine. And that’s where I mentioned we will escape the gold stream that’s sitting on our through mine right now. It’s 8% of our production. It’s for effectively selling our gold.

It’s 8% of our production at $605 an ounce, which is ludicrous. But that was a legacy when we bought the property, the previous management put a stream on. And I do think those streams are very detrimental to the industry. Not a bad thing to buy as an investor, but when management uses streams or royalties, I think it really hurts profitability and resilience in the downturn, the metal price. Moving along.

On the next slide, it’s just listening listing our reserves and resources. And here,

Michael Ametting, VP and general manager, McEwen Copper: you can

Rob McEwen, Chairman and chief owner, McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper: see under gold and our operations that are four five operations. We bought another company called Timberline early this year, but there’s a resource total resources taking proven probable measured indicated and inferred of 4,000,000 ounces gold, about 37,400,000 ounces silver, 46% interest in the copper. Our share with that would be Rumikutu copper would be £17,400,000,000. On the next slide, we’re expecting to increase production as a result of the development going on at the stock mine and can see us moving up to over 225,000 ounces in the next five years, and you can see the the growth there. So McEwen Mining, I think there’s considerable value there, at least by management’s calculations.

Practically priced liquid trader. You’ve got a lot of exposure to copper, and in fact, if you bought McEwen Mining, you’re getting the copper. You’re basically paying for that and getting all the gold and the royalty portfolios for free at at current prices. The resource base is growing as is production, and there’s a lot of commitment by by management in terms of ownership, alignment with shareholder interest. And we’re a big exploration advocate, so, we see growth at Los Azules through exploration, at Gold Bar, and at Fox.

So, John, over to you.

John: Super. Everyone is welcome to submit questions, via the question box, and we appreciate everyone’s participation and interest. Rob, could you explain 100,000 ounce plus gold equivalent output gain by 2030, is it principally at the Stock location?

Rob McEwen, Chairman and chief owner, McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper: Yes. Stock well, it’s Stock and Grey Fox conditional on some permitting, but we’re looking to start developing that several years from now.

John: In order to build Los Azules, what do you expect would be the ultimate ownership and financial structure. For example, might there be a gold stream for the little bit of gold output? You don’t need an Asian smelter because you’re gonna refine your own copper. Would you expect Rio Tinto to step up and be a larger owner and operator? Would McEwen Mining aspire to be the operator since you have some gold and silver expertise and had mines before?

What what do you think the end game is?

Rob McEwen, Chairman and chief owner, McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper: Well, there’s lower grade gold and silver there. There’s a lot of gold and silver, but the opportunity cost of not having a mill is not that large at the moment. We’re looking at a heap leach process where you would not initially recover any gold or silver. That would be a much later date. And we were going with a heap leach process, one, because it’s part of area of Argentina has experienced a drought for several years, so water is a critical issue.

And with the heap leach process, we’d be using less than a quarter of the water of a conventional copper mine that produces a copper cathode. Not only is it lower water consumption, it’s lower capital, and it’s probably you’ll get greater community acceptance because there’d be no tailings dam. When we model the tailings dam based on the production we’re looking at, we’d be looking at something 300 meters tall in a seismically active area on and we’d be at the headwaters of tributaries that feed into the main river that goes through the capital city. So we that’s why we elect to go with the heap leach process, producing a copper cathode immediately at site. So no stream on go I guess if someone wanted to buy a stream, it’d be probably about thirty years from now that they’d start seeing it.

John: So it’s possible that MUX, Rio, Stellantis, and potentially some others form a consortium to finance and build and run the mine?

Rob McEwen, Chairman and chief owner, McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper: Yes. That’s that’s the basis we’re going forward on that we’d be building. We’d wanna bring in part Mike, do wanna add to that?

Michael Ametting, VP and general manager, McEwen Copper: Sure. We think that in order to to build Los Azules, I mean, we’re looking for 3 plus billion financing. Right? So that means if we look at let’s say, we can we can finance 40% equity, that would be about 1,200,000,000.0. Out of the 1,200,000,000.0, probably 600,000,000 plus needs to come from a strategic investor that could be either existing or could be a new strategic investor.

And then the remainder would be through private equity and other sources, including potential multilaterals that do an equity contribution. Then on the on the debt side, how you typically find this finance this project is through export credit agency, development finance organizations, plus syndicated loan with commercial banks, plus subordinated mezzanine debt plus off tech agreement. That that’s typically how this is done, and that’s what we’re looking for at the moment. Maybe maybe to say one one important thing for for listeners is that so our base case that we had in the PEA, the same as the base case that we’re going to have in the feasibility, is conventional bioheat bleaching without your Tintus new technology. We will include into the feasibility on PA level of accuracy in upset scenario using Rio Tinto’s new heap leaching technology, which could expand the life of the asset significantly.

Why is that? Because we have upgraded to measured and indicated the majority of our supergene, which is the leachable material. We were not targeting the primary minerals. Now we are going through about one a little bit more than 1 of our resource in the feasibility, but then there’s two thirds of the resource left. And this two thirds of the resource could be processed using technologies such as Newton, and this would be a bolt on case significantly expanding the life of the asset.

John: Let me just look in the question box to see what the topics of interest are from the audience. What’s the plan for Canadian Canadian gold and the Tartan Lake mine. We

Rob McEwen, Chairman and chief owner, McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper: have an investment there. We think it’s an attractive asset. Looking at while I was running Goldcorp, we invested in a number of juniors, and we were able to I viewed it as a farm team and a listening post. And some of them ran beyond where I thought they would, and so we sold them and used the proceeds to fund our development at Red Lake for.

John: So it’s an investment?

Rob McEwen, Chairman and chief owner, McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper: Yes. And we have one in

John: expect to buy it and build the mine and operate it.

Rob McEwen, Chairman and chief owner, McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper: Not at this time. No. And we have investments in a couple of other engineers, Inventis, which is a paleo plaster in Northern Ontario, in Goliath, which is a high grade epithermal in British Columbia, the Golden Triangle. It it seems to be a better place to put money right now with the juniors undervalued than if we get to sit in the bank. And, hopefully, one day, we get to a point where we can pay a dividend and do a buyback.

John: When will the copper spin off and IPO happen?

Rob McEwen, Chairman and chief owner, McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper: There are couple of factors we want to have included in the in McEwen copper before we did an IPO. One was get the feasibility study done, which right now, we’re looking at in late July or a little later than that in in the third third quarter. And also getting the Regi. We as Mike said, we applied for it on February 11, and we’re waiting for its approval because the contribution to the value of the property is significant. Lower tax rates, quicker refunds, tax stability.

There are a number of big significant benefits that we want to include in the calculation of the value of Los Azules.

John: Is it reasonable, Rob, that the IPO would occur before you raise the 3,000,000,000 to build the mine as part of the way to raise a little more equity on it.

Rob McEwen, Chairman and chief owner, McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper: Yes. That’s correct, John. When we once we have the feasibility done, we also then there’s another year of engineering to be done before the you make the investment decision. But that’s not to say we’re not right now, we’re going around talking to parties that have the capacity to lend and also invest in equity in a copper project.

John: There’s a question about your board of directors, their competencies, how involved they are in contributing to the management. The guy asking the question might wanna be a director and help you out.

Rob McEwen, Chairman and chief owner, McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper: Oh, alright. Mike, do you want to field that question?

Michael Ametting, VP and general manager, McEwen Copper: It it depends on what board of directors we’re talking, whether it’s McKeon’s copper board or whether it’s McKeon Mining.

John: Let’s say, but let’s talk about those.

Michael Ametting, VP and general manager, McEwen Copper: Yeah. I mean, we have we have a very experienced board in McEwen Copper. We have executive directors such as Rob, Bill Shaver, and and myself. We have representatives from Stellantis, a senior VP of supply chain, and we have Adam Burley, the the CEO of Newton. We have Paul McRae that is a very experienced director that has been helping us to get to the stage where we are.

We are having an upcoming election on new board members, and we hope to bring somebody on board that has significant experience in building in designing, engineering, and building copper mines in the Andes with significant experience in in companies such as Codelco and Antofagasta Minerals.

Rob McEwen, Chairman and chief owner, McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper: Also, David Beatty, who was second in command when Papua New Guinea got gained its independence from Australia, and he was the one that negotiated for Oktedi with the government and the investors. And then he served as chairman of Cobre. Panama Cobre. Cobre Panama and FNC. So he’s had long exposure to the copper industry, and he’s also was instrumental in setting up all the director education programs that came out of U of T, the largest director education program in the country.

So

Michael Ametting, VP and general manager, McEwen Copper: And then we have Serge Gadesco. That’s former the that’s a former managing director of PwC in Canada that has seen, during his tenure, large accounts of mining companies, Canadian mining companies with operations in South America, including Argentina.

John: As we proceed with, the 100, kilometers of additional drilling, more metallurgical tests, more engineering. What are the positive and negative surprises? You mentioned that the capital cost should be 20% more. Almost everything else you talked about was favorable. Tell us what you learned when you drill a 100 kilometers.

Michael Ametting, VP and general manager, McEwen Copper: What you learn when you drill a 100 kilometers is that, you have a better idea on the actual shape of your deposit, way that you’re going to mine it going forward. You get lots of additional information. I mean, what we have mentioned there is only the drilling that we did with regards to the direct resource drilling. We have also done lots of condemnation drilling. We have done water drilling.

We have done geotechnical drilling. And we we learned that we need to consider certain factors of the environment differently that will have an impact on the mine design. We are benefiting from a project that is located in a very in in a very accessible area in the Andes at a very low altitude compared to others. And we have mineralization that is amenable to the processing that we we aim to use. But on the other hand, we have also lots of broken rock, meaning that we have to take into consideration geotechnical assumptions that that because of the expanded drilling, we didn’t have during the PEA, which which impacts how we are going to mine going forward.

So that’s, I would say, the highlights. Then we mentioned the additional exploration targets. We looked at we looked at prospecting. We did geological maps. We do we looked at outcroppings.

We looked at surface. And then we did drill two targets, and we have seen that those two targets are mineralized. One is Mercedes and Tango. We knew from the season before that Porfirio Norte, which is an northern extension of the pit, is mineralized and has significant mineralization. That was the hole I was showing, a z 22174 is 482 me 480 meters of about 0.42 copper.

So you learn a lot about potential and possibilities and refinement of the engineering going forward.

John: In terms of mundane things like net income and earnings per share, Rob, we have the wonders of $3,300 gold and $36 silver on the revenue side and the deconsolidation of McEwen Copper where you’re not charging all the expenses, you’re going to have, I guess, 46% equity loss. Yes. Maybe that even gets slightly smaller if there’s a capital raise at the copper level. So does the does the combination of more revenue and the deconsolidation of the copper put you on track for a profitable quarter in June or September or December, or do we have to wait a couple years until the output gets higher than a 130,000 ounces of coequivalent?

Rob McEwen, Chairman and chief owner, McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper: No. We’re starting to we’re seeing positive cash flow being generated, John, looking at somewhere in the neighborhood of 30,000,000 this year. Certainly, the bringing in the expenses that have occurred at Los Azules onto our income statement has given us a number of years of losses. Once the feasibility study is published, then those expenses will be capitalized and no longer on the income statement as an expense. And that’ll have a very positive impact going forward.

And as the price of gold’s going up, the our cost containment’s getting better, and we are a higher cost operation at the moment. But we can see a way to generating positive cash flow and earnings.

John: So, Rob, in terms of the formality of earnings, my impression is, do you always give the geologists more money to explore because you’ve made your fortune in living drilling and having successful results and that you’d rather drill in the formality of what the earnings per share is as if you’re main driver. Is that a fair characterization that you’re a long term investor and not a quarterly earnings guy?

Rob McEwen, Chairman and chief owner, McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper: Very true. I’m a big believer that exploration can build value having experienced it in the past, and we’re in a in some prolific areas for gold mineralization and that have not been fully explored. And we’re seeing that at the Fox Complex, Grey Fox, and we’re expecting to see more of it at the Stock Mine. We have we acquired a company called Timberline, a small explorer, so we could get property close to our Gold Bar property and be a source of additional ore. One of the other properties that came with us was called 7 Troughs.

And I’m quite intrigued by it because back fifty years ago, it was considered the highest grade gold mine in Nevada, mining over an ounce. So we’re putting all that historic data together to begin a program there as well. So you’re right. I’ll keep exploring because that’s driving value for us.

John: We like we like long term value and asset value. I don’t think quarterly earnings mean anything for gold mines. The if you can measure the ore grade to a of a gram, it’s probably beyond the measurement and sampling accuracy.

Rob McEwen, Chairman and chief owner, McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper: Mhmm.

John: And the quarterly earnings fluctuations are about little things like that and the variations in stopes and which you’re drilling is what counts. So, Rob, the McEwen price maybe hasn’t gone up as much as you think it should, but there’s a lot of developers or prerevenue companies whose stocks haven’t gone up yet. Do you think there’s a couple more timber lines that could enhance with human mining?

Rob McEwen, Chairman and chief owner, McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper: Very definitely. It’s still an overlooked sector of the market. I’m a big believer the price of gold is going higher, and you’re going to see more investors putting gold in their portfolio. And those there’s a lot of people who’ve been out there exploring, getting good results, and not getting much of a reward in the market for those results. But they’d be a good addition to McEwen Mining to increase our growth.

So always on the lookout.

John: It’s a remarkable time when the gold price is over 3,300, and the stock market seems to be expecting a thousand dollars or more or less. And I tell investors that the large major gold miners calculate reserves at 14 to 1,700. And we averaged around twelve fifty from 2013 to 2018, eighteen fifty from 2020 to 2023. And some of the big guys, maybe they think like mining engineers, and maybe the shaft can only do 6,000 tons a day, and the grinding mill is sized for 6,000 tons a day, and the crushers, and the permits, and the waste dumps, and the tailings. And when the price changes, they can’t change the engineering of all that.

And the permits can take three to five years from one to change your amendment. And if they cut lowered their cutoff grade and put lower grade ore through a fixed 6,000 ton a day shaft metal infrastructure, it produced less gold.

Rob McEwen, Chairman and chief owner, McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper: Mhmm.

John: But so they sort of pretend like the price of gold is still 14 to 1,700 and ignore the good times.

Rob McEwen, Chairman and chief owner, McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper: I could I couldn’t agree more. I I just don’t understand.

John: The analysts don’t wanna do a price very different than the companies. So I don’t read street research. I treat it as pornography. It’s more painful to read it than write it. But my sense is that everybody’s using over a thousand dollars below spot when they do their NPV models.

Mhmm. So we’re in this weird time where the stocks are undervalued, and I don’t root for the gold price to go up when I own stocks. I just root for it to not go down. That’s a pretty good payday.

Rob McEwen, Chairman and chief owner, McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper: Yes. Yes. So

John: it’s amazing how all these different stocks are the developers are just dead in the water, some of them. A few of them are getting discovered.

Rob McEwen, Chairman and chief owner, McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper: Now there there’s been some movement, but not a lot. And I think the opportune it’s a very good opportunity to start establishing or adding to one’s positions. They there’s a lot of torque when you’re into a as you know, when you’re into a strong gold market, it’s the companies that were ignored, that were high cost, or just forgotten about that can deliver triple digit or quadruple digit type returns. I’ve gone through it one couple times before, and I think it’s coming again on and it’ll come back with a vengeance.

John: When I look at the price decks that peep some people are using or some companies are using, the US dollar would have to strengthen over 25% for gold to fall a thousand dollars. And I don’t think we’re in very good shape or such good shape. I know lots of other countries are worse, but it’s an it’s just a a very good time, and people can’t believe it. And the the base metals are just are the same.

Rob McEwen, Chairman and chief owner, McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper: Yes. There hasn’t been a lot of investment in increased production capacity, and we’re trailing behind. And the demand for metals is going up, just geopolitical conflict and changing trade patterns in a big way.

Michael Ametting, VP and general manager, McEwen Copper: So

John: Rob and Mike, I appreciate your time and your diligence. I know you put a lot of work into your slides and your presentation, and, you’ve been working arduously with Rob not getting paid as a salary or in the share price for a while, but I wanna thank you for your services to the company. Thank you.

Rob McEwen, Chairman and chief owner, McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper: Thank you, John. Much appreciated.

Michael Ametting, VP and general manager, McEwen Copper: So much, Steph.

John: Thank you everyone on the call for your attention. Have a good afternoon.

Rob McEwen, Chairman and chief owner, McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper: Thank you.

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