Q3 2024 McEwen Mining Inc Earnings Call
Hello ladies and gentlemen, welcome to McEwenMining Q3, 2024 operating in financial results conference call.
President from the company today, our Rob McEwen, Chairman and Chief Owner, William Shaber, Chief Operating Officer, Perry Ing, Chief Financial Officer, Jeff Chan, Vice President by Nets.
Stefan Spears, Vice President, Corporate Development.
Vice President and General Manager in McEwen Copper.
Comments Yes!
General Counsel and Security.
Speaker Change: After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. If you'd like to ask a question during this time, press star, follow by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press star, follow by the number one again.
Speaker Change: Our now-term today is Call Over Two, Rob McEwen, Chief Owner. Please go ahead, sir. Thank you, Operator.
Rob McEwen: Good morning fellow shareholders and interested investors. You heard as Lou is with me today on the call and they're available to answer your questions when we move into that period.
Rob McEwen: During the third quarter and the first nine months of this year, we have made significant progress reporting double-entriple digit improvements in key performance metrics.
Speaker Change: As you can read in our press release.
Speaker Change: 3rd quarter of 24 was stellar compared to the 3rd quarter of 23.
Speaker Change: Revenue up 36% gross profit up 268% adjusted EBITDA up 586% operating cash flow up.
Speaker Change: at 23 million from a negative 2.3 million back in 2023.
Speaker Change: Our safety record is also stellar, we're pleased to post.
Speaker Change: at our record deck Gold Bar 54 months without a lost time accident at the Fox Complex 33 months without a lost time and McEwen copper losses Ullis and amazing 1.3 million man hours without a lost time accident.
Speaker Change: During the quarter, we continued to push our exploration, spending $5.3 million at the Fox and Gold Bar.
Speaker Change: Mines, $6.1 million at Los Azulis, the McEwen Copper Project. And these expenditures we view as strategic investments and that have successfully extended the lives of our mines.
Speaker Change: And they're currently treated as expenses and largely contributed to the net loss re-recorded of 2.1 million, or four cents a share.
Speaker Change: We will be providing updated resource estimates to be released early next year.
Speaker Change: Our funds and over the in the last quarter we closed on 56 million and that'll be used to complete the bankable feasibility study for Los Azules.
Speaker Change: We expect the feasibility study to be completed in the first half of next year, and we're also expecting to receive our environmental permit to construct the mine.
Speaker Change: during that same period.
Speaker Change: Once we have both the feasibility study and the environmental permit in hand, we're planning to IPO McEwen Copper.
Speaker Change: I think it's worth noting that we have raised privately...
Speaker Change: over 470 million dollars to go towards the development of Los Azules and based on the last financing that we completed at $30 a share
Speaker Change: It gives an implied market value to McEwen Mining of $984 million.
Speaker Change: I expect this value will soon reach the unicorn status that I predicted several years ago.
Speaker Change: During the quarter, we made some investments. In Nevada, we completed the acquisition of Timberline Resources.
Speaker Change: It has properties, three properties, but one close to our gold bar mine has patented land claims with over half a million ounces outlined on there that we will
Speaker Change: be using to extend the life of our gold bar mine. We are starting to drill on some of the exploration targets we've identified, and that's starting this week and will continue through the year.
Speaker Change: At Fox, work is underway expanding our tailings facility to accommodate increased production from our Fox complex.
Speaker Change: to connect Stock East, Stock Main, and Stock West.
Speaker Change: In Ontario, we bought a...
Speaker Change: position in a company called Inventus Mining. It has a very interesting paleoplacer gold deposit. These deposits are
Speaker Change: are quite common in the South.
Speaker Change: Africa and contributed to South Africa's large gold production. It's a shallow deposit. We think it could be easily mined and find it a very interesting property. We also invested $14 million in McEwen Copper.
Speaker Change: part of the 56 million we raised early this year, believing that after DHP and Lundin, their deal of in excess of four billion dollars
Speaker Change: We looked at our property and said it's lower altitude, a larger resource, it's closer to infrastructure.
Speaker Change: We can see a higher value for our Los Azules property.
Speaker Change: At this point, I'd like to open the session for questions.
Speaker Change: I can say we have two questions that came in online.
Speaker Change: Well, two people came in online, each asking two questions.
Speaker Change: Thank you.
Speaker Change: One was how much capital the company is planning to raise for Los Azules.
Speaker Change: on the expected offering price and size of the offering.
Speaker Change: I'm sorry to say we can't say provide comments on either of those if we considered pre-marketing and we haven't completed the feasibility so we are not we don't have a hard number to say how much going to raise but once we have a feasibility study out we can answer those questions.
Speaker Change: The second...
Speaker Change: questions came in and it was outlining what studies have been completed at Los Azules for the feasibility and what are outstanding.
Speaker Change: And also, Exploration News, what are we going to be doing on the newly discovered porphyry system that's three kilometers away? And I'll ask Mike Meding, our VP and General Manager of Los Azules, to answer those questions.
Speaker Change: Those two questions.
Speaker Change: Mike.
Mike Meding: Thank you so much for...
Mike Meding: So, our record-breaking drilling campaign last season with 23 rigs at site provided most of the technical data needed for the feasibility study.
Mike Meding: We plan to drill an additional approximately 7,700 meters this season to complement existing data using rigs operated mainly by local contractors we've developed in South London.
Speaker Change: We're planning nearly 4,000 meters of condemnation drilling using diamond drills in the area designated for future project infrastructure along with about 1,400 meters of geotechnical sonic drilling, 1,500 meters of geotechnical diamond drilling, and 800 meters of hydrogeological wells to support our study conclusion.
Speaker Change: In Q3, we updated the Mineral Resource Model, optimized pit resources, and conducted initial reserve calculations, with results being likely close to the Preliminary Economic Assessment, the PEA. We also completed hydrological models, process instrumentation diagrams, the P&IDs.
Speaker Change: and initiated third-party reviews for resource modeling, geotechnics, hydrology, and metallurgy. Metallurgical recoveries are trending at expected levels with recoveries of around 76%, in line with the prior press release we put out.
Speaker Change: We've signed a second Memorandum of Understanding with YPF to ensure feasibility study level of engineering aligns with our feasibility goals.
Speaker Change: YPS committed to options to provide renewable energy for the project to wind, solar, and hydro sources.
Speaker Change: Our team conducted benchmark visits in Chile and the U.S. and engaged with major equipment suppliers on electric and autonomous fleet options.
Speaker Change: Now, what are the remaining steps?
Speaker Change: The remaining steps before the feasibility study include completing the site investigation, as I mentioned before, the final mine design, complete metallurgical variability testing, engineering, logistics planning, equipment specification, capital and operating cost confirmation, and finally the write-up of the feasibility study itself.
Speaker Change: which we already started. We aim to include the Newton upside as potential in the NA43-101 reports.
Speaker Change: So that's what we have on the schedule going forward.
Speaker Change: With regards to Tango, depending on funds availability, we have a comprehensive
Speaker Change: program in place to test the mineralization in Tango. You remember that we discovered a pottery about three kilometers east of Los Azules. This will not be included in the feasibility studies. On top of what what we think is that we have a pottery system.
Speaker Change: We have seen moly on surface, we have seen quartz veining, we have seen copper.
Speaker Change: we have seen geophysical anomalies and we have drilled at the last
Speaker Change: at the end of the last season to a relatively shallow depth, but we saw 106 meters with about 0.11% of copper.
Speaker Change: And while this is borderline, it shows that the system is mineralized. So we're going to go more to the center of where we see the anomaly to confirm the presence of higher rates.
Speaker Change: That's what we have on top of mind for Tango going forward.
Speaker Change: and I'm going to be talking about the the the the the the the the the the the the the the
Speaker Change: Thank you, Mike.
Speaker Change: Operator, are there other questions?
Speaker Change: As a reminder to ask a question, you will need to press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. To withdraw your question, press star followed by the number one again.
Speaker Change: Your first question is from the line of Jay Sekilsky with Alliance Global Partners.
Jay Sekilsky: Hey, Rob. Thanks for taking my question.
Speaker Change: Hey Rob, so just looking at that gold bar, turned in another strong quarter from a production perspective. I'm just curious, are the higher production levels we saw over the last two quarters something we should expect to continue heading into 2025?
Mike Meding: I may be right to answer that question for you. We have increased...
Speaker Change: The amount of material we're moving at Gold Bar, but.
Speaker Change: A lot of that material is actually waste that were
Speaker Change: moving off of
Speaker Change: a part of the pit that's called pick three so it's it's basically a stripping operation.
Speaker Change: So, although we are moving more, significantly more material, the expectation is that production of gold in 2025 will be in line with what we've done, you know, this year.
Speaker Change: So, we'll have...
Speaker Change: an equal amount of gold produced in 2025.
Speaker Change: with more tons being mined because of the amount of stripping and that, you know, we're aggressively pursuing the stripping now because of the high coal price.
Speaker Change: Okay, that's helpful.
Speaker Change: Switching to the Timberline acquisition, Rob, you touched on this a bit. Can you just give us some color on what the permitting process and timeline might look like at Eureka? I'm just curious how quickly some of this material could potentially be brought into the Gold Bar Mine Plant.
Speaker Change: Sure, a last step in spheres too.
Speaker Change: address that question.
Speaker Change: No problem, Ron. Hi, Jake.
Speaker Change: So, we're looking, I mean, we're working already on the permitting process. We've got our permit to conduct exploration, and as Rob said in his remarks, exploration has started on part of the property.
Speaker Change: There's kind of two segments to the property. One area where we have patented mining claims that are not BLM ground, so we're dealing with the state only on permitting there, and that has a kind of a quicker timeline of around two years for permitting.
Speaker Change: BLM permitting is a slight unknown but it's expected to be longer and that would affect the Lookout Mountain resource.
Speaker Change: And so the way the team is looking at it is, you know, it'll be permitted and in several phases with the earliest possible production projected for around 2027 and then layering on from from there.
Speaker Change: Got it. Okay, that's helpful. And then just lastly at Fox, any color on the development work that's being done and still needs to be done there over the next quarter or so in order to improve slope access?
Speaker Change: Bill, would you care to address that?
Bill: Yes, well, we are in the final throes of getting our permit to start the ramp excavation to get down into the main ore body at Stock and also into Stock East.
Speaker Change: At the same time, we are doing some shaft rehabilitation.
Speaker Change: And this work is being done principally to make sure we have proper egress from the mine and also to help in the eventual ventilation system for the operation.
Speaker Change: So, I guess we're hoping to have the stock, some parts of the stock operation in operation in kind of Q3, Q4 of next year.
Speaker Change: And that will overlap nicely with ore coming out of froom so that we don't end up with a gap in between the two operations.
Speaker Change: And, you know, this year we've had, I would say, a very successful drilling program where we've extended the ore to Stock East and extended ore, you know, down as deep as 600 feet.
Speaker Change: You know, I think the future looks pretty good there, and of course, with today's prices, you know, even looks a little bit better.
Speaker Change: Now we're pretty optimistic about what we'll be able to do in
Speaker Change: 2025 budget process which, you know, is going to, which we're working on diligently right now and, you know, we'll have before our board sometime in December.
Speaker Change: That's all for me. Thanks again and congrats on the quarter. Thank you, Jay.
Speaker Change: Your next question is from the line of Joseph Rager with Roth Capital Partners.
Joseph Rager: Thank you.
Joseph Rager: I guess the first one is kind of a follow up to Jake's question about Gold Bar, but more so about just this year.
Speaker Change: The current guide...
Speaker Change: You know, you're almost there already.
Speaker Change: No Incentive to Raise the Guide Ahead of the Quarter, which way should we read that?
Speaker Change: Well, actually, the plan for Q4 was that it was going to be a low production
Speaker Change: period of time and that's in part due to some of the stripping we are we are doing on the PIK3 and so I can't remember exactly what that number is but it seems to me it's around
Speaker Change: for the quarter.
Speaker Change: It's around 8,000 ounces for the last quarter is the number I kind of remember but it's I think it's between eight and nine.
Speaker Change: And that was always part of the plan. So, you know, we're basically on track to meet guidance with.
Speaker Change: You know the better quarter that we just had and you know the and we're working hard to try and make make the last quarter a little bit better and you know, we're pushing the our our fellows to do that and
Speaker Change: You know, it's kind of steady as she goes.
Speaker Change: Okay, fair enough. And then for Louis Azoulay, post the equity issuance a couple weeks ago, what's the cash balance roughly right now in the subsidy area?
Speaker Change: Jeff, do you want...
Jeff Chan: Sure, let me just pull that up, but it would just be north of $40 million at the moment.
Speaker Change: You get that, Joe?
Joe: Yep. All right, and then, um...
Joe: One final thing.
Speaker Change: As you guys work towards adding in the Timberline acquisition to Gold Bar, will you guys be treating it as a separate mine, or will you guys be treating it as kind of like a separate pit, but still all through Gold Bar from like an accounting standpoint?
Speaker Change: From an accounting standpoint, it would be unitized under Gold Bar.
Speaker Change: Most likely, yeah.
Speaker Change: You know, eventually we may have a leach pad at Timberline, but, you know, the final finished product, the gold bar, will be still produced at Gold Bar. So we'll transport carbon back to...
Speaker Change: back the gold bar and then remove the gold.
Speaker Change: Okay, that's helpful. All right, I'll turn it over. Thanks, guys. Thank you.
Speaker Change: Your next question is from the line of Heiko Isle with HC Wainwright.
Speaker Change: Hello Heiko. Hey Rob, how are you? Excellent, thank you.
Heiko Isle: Hey, you had somewhat lower than expected grades at San Jose. Can you just provide a bit of color on what happened? I assume the mind plane is still intact.
Heiko Isle: and also most importantly probably what you've seen in Q4 thus far and then building on all of that how should we think of our longer-term estimates to the side I assume that this is more of a one-time thing right
Heiko Isle: Yes, Perry will.
Speaker Change: answer that question. Morning Heiko, thanks for your question. So yeah, we have regular dialogue with the team from Hosschild and management at San Jose.
Speaker Change: advised that the lower grades were temporary, again mostly reconciliation versus resource model, but that seems to have been rectified in October or by October.
Speaker Change: Q4 is trending well so far and we believe the operation is on track.
Speaker Change: to meet guidance.
Speaker Change: Over the past quarter has helped significantly and there has been some modest exploration success which has continued to extend my life.
Speaker Change: Thanks for watching!
Speaker Change: Fair enough. And then something completely different, and frankly I'm actually shocked that this hasn't come up yet. It's a bit more philosophical, I mean you're based in Canada, you operate Gold Bar in Nevada.
Speaker Change: Obviously, big news out of the States today, we're going to get a new president in January.
Speaker Change: I wanted to see if you have internally thought of the impacts of all of that, positive or negative from the election results from last night, even just like minor things, you know, whatever, cash movement across borders, you know, staff travel, that kind of stuff.
Speaker Change: President-elect Trump has said that he wants to encourage the development of resources in the country.
Speaker Change: and I think it can only be positive. He wants to streamline the regulations and create more employment in the country.
Speaker Change: And he's pro-mining, obviously. Yes, so I think that's good for Gold Bar and our other properties there.
Speaker Change: Fair enough. I figured you'd say something along those lines, but you don't have any little like internal checklist of things that you're focusing on.
Speaker Change: It's too early at this point. The outcome of the election was up in the air and we just thought we'd let the dust settle before trying to look at that.
Speaker Change: I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Thank you, Heiko.
Speaker Change: Bye.
Speaker Change: That was short.
Speaker Change: As a reminder, to ask a question, press star 1 on your telephone keypad. Your next question is from the line of Chris White with Paz Ventures.
Speaker Change: Hello, Chris.
Chris White: Good morning, Robin team. Congratulations on the sales price of $2,499 an ounce. That's great.
Chris White: I got two quick questions. I think they might be for Bill, but you let me know.
Speaker Change: So, with you in the release,
Speaker Change: I'm struggling with, on slide 28 of the corporate deck, it said that our all-in sustained costs were going to be going down to like $1,650 to $1,750 at gold bar.
Speaker Change: But the press release said Gold Bar's actuals was 1822. And then same thing at Fox. The slide 28 says 1450 to 1550 for Fox.
Speaker Change: But the actual was $1,953 or $400 to $500 more than slide 28 suggested.
Speaker Change: Could you maybe provide more details here for all of us on the line?
Speaker Change: Maybe answer also, what would it take to get under 1,500 in Q4? Is that even possible?
Speaker Change: Do you want to answer part of that Jeff or yeah, I would say the chances of us getting under $1,500 is probably
Speaker Change: very low. In the case of Gold Bar, it's in part because
Speaker Change: We're on a very aggressive stripping program right now to take advantage of the high gold price.
Speaker Change: to do stripping at PICC-3. PICC-3 is, you know, a lower, a little bit lower grade than the average at...
Speaker Change: at Gold Bar, and you know, at these prices, it is very valuable ore.
Speaker Change: But if the price of gold, say, fell back to $1,500, you know, that material might not even be ore.
Speaker Change: So we're, in part, we may be seeing some higher
Speaker Change: I guess, cost per ounce numbers, but, you know, those are based on doing proper work in order to put us in a better position for next year.
Speaker Change: Sure, so just in clarifying, the slide 28 in your corporate deck, you guys are...
Speaker Change: going after different parts of the mine than what the all-and-sustained cost of $1,650 and $1,750 was reflecting? Is that right, because the price of gold is higher?
Speaker Change: That's right. And also, I mean, this stripping that we're doing now is going to expose ore for next year.
Speaker Change: You got it.
Speaker Change: Any comment on Fox, why Fox came in so high?
Speaker Change: Well, Fox is primarily high because of the low production in Q3.
Speaker Change: That's basically, you know, it has to do with the divisor and, you know, it also, I guess, is some of it is attributed to, you know, all of the money we're spending at this point on getting stock going as well.
Speaker Change: And that just wasn't factored in on the slide 28 piece? Like, what's the delta between what you guys have in the corporate deck and what actually happened in Q3?
Speaker Change: Speak to slide 28 on this deck. You know, I think we need to keep in mind that the guidance figures here are provided on an annual basis.
Speaker Change: And so just speaking to Gold Bar specifically, we still do expect to meet or exceed, by exceed I mean come in below our cost guidance on an annual basis. I think as Bill mentioned in his earlier remarks.
Speaker Change: given the planned declining production of Gold Bar quarter over quarter, it would be natural to see increasing quarterly unit costs go up, but on an annual basis, you know, I would expect to still come in, you know, again, within or below cost guidance. At Fox, it's exactly as Bill mentioned.
Speaker Change: You know, due to the lower than planned production and the production miss that we've advised the markets, we are expecting higher than expected unit costs in our guidance.
Speaker Change: You know, looking at our financial base, it's not a result of overspend. I think on a total basis, we're expecting to be within exactly our planned spend, but it is a production issue.
Speaker Change: And at Fox, there was an unexpected failure of one of the stopes that affected a larger area underground, and that reduced our production. As Bill said, when you reduce the production, the cost per ounce goes up.
Speaker Change: I also remember that the Froome mine is kind of in in its last year of mine life and so there you know there is that's always a bit more challenging I would say but we're we're handling that well.
Speaker Change: For more information visit www.FEMA.gov
Speaker Change: That's helpful. So, it sounds like that if we were to put a bow on this answer...
Speaker Change: You guys are sticking with the estimates on slide 28 and that Q3 was just an outlier. Is that a fair articulation?
Speaker Change: I'd say, you know, I guess just to maybe add some caution there, I would expect that what we're going to see is a slightly higher cost per ounce at Fox.
Speaker Change: You know, and it'll depend on exactly what the production is in the last quarter.
Speaker Change: Got it.
Speaker Change: So then, my last question here just kind of spring rolls or springboards Rob off what you said.
Speaker Change: And I guess, if that's correct, how do we make sure that this type of thing doesn't happen again? Because, boy, this stock would be ripping if you guys could just be breaking even.
Speaker Change: I don't know, am I interpreting that correctly, that that's what's stopping us from being breakeven and then this question of how do we make sure this doesn't happen again?
Speaker Change: You're totally correct.
Speaker Change: Chris, and this is Perry, the CFO. So definitely, had we produced a bit more ounces, we would have had a positive quarter. And as well, as Rob mentioned, going back to Los Azules, once we finish the feasibility study and have our permits in hand, we can actually capitalize our exploration costs that McEwen cut.
Speaker Change: So, if you look at our year-to-date spend, you know, our year-to-date proportional loss is $36-$37 million. You know, that would have been nullified as a loss, and we would have, you know, been quite profitable for the year and for the quarter.
Speaker Change: 34 million.
Speaker Change: Thank you.
Speaker Change: , , , , , , , , ,
Speaker Change: Yeah, I can imagine for you. When do you think that quarter, Perry?
Speaker Change: The feasibility will be in the first half of next year and the
Speaker Change: I guess the feasibility, as Michael talked about, is well underway. The timelines for that are fairly definite. The permits, obviously, were subject to the timelines from the appropriate ministries in Argentina.
Speaker Change: Great. So first half of 25, we should be printing positive quarters.
Speaker Change: Fair.
Speaker Change: Well, we'll have the feasibility, we expect to have the permit, and we have to get the IPO out. We don't need to have the IPO? Alright, so the end of the first half, we should be moving into positive grounds.
Speaker Change: Assuming we don't buy something else.
Speaker Change: which prices could be good. All right, thank you guys.
Speaker Change: Thank you, Chris.
Speaker Change: Thank you for your loyalty.
Speaker Change: Your next question is from the line of John Morin.
John Morin: Hi, I have two questions.
John Morin: The first.
John Morin: I've been an individual investor for over 12 years, now having over 40,000 shares.
John Morin: When people ask me why I invested in the company, I told them, I said, the company is really unique.
Speaker Change: You founded and were chairman of the Gold Corp.
Speaker Change: And then you started this company.
Speaker Change: You have a large, you know, stake in it.
Speaker Change: And plus, originally, you had no debt.
Speaker Change: So I said, you know, it's one of a one of a kind.
Speaker Change: The thing that puzzles me, though, is that back in the day, like, you know, about 12 years ago,
Speaker Change: The stock was, or at least peaked, substantially higher.
Speaker Change: Now, from what I can see, the company is in much, much better shape now. You finished that road for the copper, and you mentioned that the copper, if I understood you correctly, is worth more than the stock price, not even counting the gold and silver. So...
Speaker Change: What puzzles me is nothing to do with you, but why the market isn't reflecting this, you know, to a much larger degree, where you would estimate the stock should be in the 20s or 30s.
Speaker Change: And then my second comment, I heard what you said about Trump, but...
Speaker Change: Bye-bye.
Speaker Change: Just, you know, today the gold is down about $80 a share, almost, and the silver $1.50. And I was wondering, you know, if it's a positive reflection, at least with the Colorado-Nevada or the Nevada mine, why do you think it dropped so substantially?
Speaker Change: Thank you.
Speaker Change: Thank you, John. Okay, let's deal with the first question about why are we not higher
Speaker Change: And I agree, we are in better shape than we were back then. We have production coming from a number of areas. Unfortunately, there was a period...
Speaker Change: three to four years, 2018 to 22.
Speaker Change: where our operations were not delivering on guidance. They missed it by a wide margin.
Speaker Change: So, we separated the copper and said let's raise the money privately there rather than diluting McEwen Mining to raise the funds.
Speaker Change: And we've had the benefit of our operations, our precious metal operations, coming back on stream.
Speaker Change: performing much better. There's still, I think, an issue of consistency in the production across all of the operations. One's up, the other one's down.
Speaker Change: That's being addressed and we see room to expand our production.
Speaker Change: considerably, so over the next three to four years through organic growth, so
Speaker Change: And we're looking at a bigger price. When we do our own internal estimates of value, it's sort of the sum of the parts we have.
Speaker Change: The copper holdings, we have a portfolio of five.
Speaker Change: on Los Azules one and a quarter percent
Speaker Change: production forecast, that would generate over a 27-year life better than $400 million. And then we get down to the next slide.
Speaker Change: into the gold shares and when you compare it to a peer group,
Speaker Change: We're trading at a large discount at the moment, and these results and what we can see going forward should start addressing concerns about the life of these assets and the costs of them. So I think it's...
Speaker Change: It's a timing issue
Speaker Change: that will resolve itself as we move forward.
Speaker Change: but it's been a painful process.
Speaker Change: and I'm going to be talking about the the the the the the the the the the the the the the
Speaker Change: with respect to
Speaker Change: Trump and and the gold price. I was looking at it and saw Bitcoin was up and gold was down and I'm saying that's odd
Speaker Change: saying they don't expect the Trump government to be spending being as profligate a spender as would the Harris government and that's
Speaker Change: Stronger. Resulting in a stronger dollar.
Speaker Change: or a perception of a stronger dollar.
Speaker Change: And you saw, it wasn't only gold, it was silver, it was a number of the base metals. The only one that wasn't down at one point this morning was lead. And that's probably because of the wars.
Speaker Change: That has grown over the years, right?
Speaker Change: It has been. We have good volume. We trade average daily volume, about 500,000 shares on New York. So good liquidity and with an improving balance sheet and operational performance.
Speaker Change: I think we'll win the attention of more institutions and retail investors.
Speaker Change: And I'm 68, I know you're 74. How much longer do you think, I'm retired, how much longer do you think you're going to go at this?
Speaker Change: Well let me share a story. A number of years ago I was meeting with an executive coach and his first question was how long, ask me how long I was going to live.
Speaker Change: And I said, well, ever since I've been about 20, I figured I'd live to 100.
Speaker Change: And he said, well, tell me what you think you're going to be like when you're 99. And I said, well, I'd like to have a clear head and be mobile.
Speaker Change: So I said, he said, well, how long are you going to live? And I said, 120.
Speaker Change: And he said, OK, at the time I was 60, he said, if you're going to live to 120, you have your whole life in front of you again.
Speaker Change: What are you going to do with it?
Speaker Change: And I said, well, what could I do with it? And he said, well, you could do ten times what you've already done.
Speaker Change: I said, 10 times more love, 10 times more travel, 10 times more philanthropy, 10 times more wealth, and he said, all of the above. And I said, well, that sounds pretty good.
Speaker Change: You have, and I said, you have 240 quarters in front of you.
Speaker Change: So, you can lay out a plan. So, I'm in no rush. I think we have in McEwen Copper, the Los Azulis property, I believe has the potential to be much bigger than Goldcorp ever was.
Speaker Change: It is, if you look at it and put it on a gold equivalent,
Speaker Change: 27-year life and producing gold equivalent of better than 600,000 ounces a year.
Speaker Change: In my book, that's an extremely big gold deposit. It's almost equal to all the gold that's produced in the last hundred years out of the Timmins District, the most prolific mining area, one of the most prolific gold areas in Canada.
Speaker Change: I think there's a lot of room. We've got copper is in large demand. You look at the deficits that are being projected for a number of reasons. The electrification of energy.
Speaker Change: the extremely high use of electricity by big data farms and servers, and then the growth of the world's population and the use of copper in the infrastructure. So there's that and gold.
Speaker Change: To me, that's always been, that's money, and our governments are good at debasing fiat currency. And so gold is, in my mind, heading higher, despite this little drop today. When you have 36 trillion...
Speaker Change: and National Debt.
Speaker Change: The service costs on that are high.
Speaker Change: And America is not alone. I look to Canada, I look to Europe, I look to China. Everybody has printed a lot of money and they've taken on a lot of debt. And at one point have to pay back the debt.
Speaker Change: And gold is one of those hard assets you want to have in your pocket, because it doesn't depreciate like fiat currency.
Speaker Change: Longest. I agree with you on the potential life expectancy.
Speaker Change: Oh, good.
Speaker Change: Well, thank you very much for sharing all that. I really appreciate it. And, you know, someday I'm going to, I'm in Hershey, near Hershey, Pennsylvania. Someday I'll come up to Toronto and meet all of you. Thank you. Maybe we'll get down to see you down in Hershey.
Speaker Change: Okay, that'd be great. Thank you. Bye
Speaker Change: Okay.
Speaker Change: Your next question is from the line of Mike Kozak with Cantor Fitzgerald.
Mike Kozak: Good morning Rob and team, congrats on the solid quarter. I joined the call a little bit late so if any of this was already mentioned I apologize but one question I've had in the back of my mind the last couple months just you know with with what silver prices have done
Mike Kozak: over the last few months, kind of catching up with gold strength, notwithstanding the one-day move down today. But in the current silver price environment,
Speaker Change: and you know both McEwen Mining and McEwen Copper looking increasingly more focused on Las Azules. Would McEwen Mining potentially look at monetizing either the Project Phoenix or your interest in the San Jose mine?
Speaker Change: At the right price? Sure.
Speaker Change: Okay.
Speaker Change: At the right price. I mean, there has been rumor that Hochschild's thinking of possibly selling San Jose, and we've been approached by one potential buyer that asked if we'd be amenable to thinking about selling.
Speaker Change: Okay.
Speaker Change: nothing
Speaker Change: Okay, I did hear something, a rumor to that effect. That's why I was just asking this question. But okay, that's all I had. Thanks.
Speaker Change: All right. Thank you, Mike.
Speaker Change: At this time, there are no further questions. I will now hand the call back over to Rob McEwen for any closing remarks.
Speaker Change: Before we close off, Perry just wanted to make a comment. We did receive an email from Howie Flinter just regarding page 4 of our news release, so we can confirm that there is a typo on one of the columns on the gross margin percentage, so we'll update that on our website version, but the correct percentage should be 17.6%.
Speaker Change: rather than 35.1% gross margin at the San Jose mine in the third quarter.
Speaker Change: Thank you.
Speaker Change: Well, thank you everyone for joining the call today. I hope you share the same thoughts that this was a great quarter. And what we want to do, our goal is to keep repeating these.
Speaker Change: Thank you, and successful investing.
Speaker Change: This concludes today's call. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect.
Speaker Change: [music]
Speaker Change: Its been a while since I've been at an airport, I'm super lost Dystopia