John Miniotis, President and CEO and Hernán Zaballa, Director and Co-Founder of AbraSilver Resource Corp (TSX.V:ABRA – OTC:ABBRF), join me for a discussion on the how the recently changing political policies in Argentina are making it more economically viable to develop projects, produce from projects, and is attracting more foreign investment from other global companies into this improving jurisdiction. We also review the exploration strategy and a number of key targets for the recently commenced 20,000 meter Phase 4 diamond drill campaign on its wholly-owned Diablillos property in Salta Province, Argentina.
We start off having John and Hernán outline the some of the major changes in Argentina since the policies of the newly elected president, Javier Milei, has enacted sweeping reform that has reduced inflation from over 20% down to 4%, is working on removing barriers to business and foreign investment in the country, and improvements to infrastructure. In particular the new “Incentive Regime for Large Investments” bill (also nicknamed RIGI) is currently working it’s way through the government and could have a substantial effect on extractive businesses. The RIGI offers a legal framework of tax, customs and exchange incentives to attract investment projects exceeding 200 million dollars. This measure aims to generate an environment of legal security that encourages the arrival of foreign and national capital.
The key takeaways for AbraSilver would be seeing the income tax drop from 35% down to 25%, removal of FX currency restrictions, and to see a 3-year reduction in export duties of 8% for gold and 4.5% for silver drop down to effectively 0% after the third year. This would mean substantial increase to the NPV of the project economics. Additionally, once the Company puts out a Feasibility Study on the project next year, they would be eligible to file a Stability Agreement, locking in the better taxes and export duties for a 30 year period.
We wrap up discussing the 20,000-meter Phase 4 drill program will prioritize the 3 drill rigs to target areas with known mineralization, like JAC North, Fantasma, Alpaca, Cerro Bayo, and Laderas; as well as exploring newly identified prospective exploration targets within the broader Diablillos land package. John reviews how the drilling done to expand the known targets will feed data into future resource updates and that the exploration team is looking for more near-surface high-grade silver and gold oxide mineralization to expand and extend the front-end economics of a project development scenario. Then on the more discovery step-out discovery drilling, the exploration team is going to be going after sulphide targets focused on gold and copper. 25% of the drill program will be focused on these new regional step-out exploration targets that remain largely untested to date at the Cerro Viejo Porphyry Complex (Cerro Blanco / Cerro Viejo), and the newly defined Jasperoid magnetic target identified in the geophysical survey conducted in late 2023.
If you have any follow up questions for John or Hernán regarding at AbraSilver, then please email me at Shad@kereport.com.
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