Raw Transcript: Silver Breaks $50 Again, Is This The Top? CEO Called Rally, Has Shocking Update | Shawn Khunkhun

try to capture the type of move we had from 1960 to 1980, it would equate to an $800 silver price. The RBI, the Reserve Bank of India, announced that they're potentially looking at bringing silver into their monetary system by allowing investors to use so silver as collateral at a a 10:1 silver to gold ratio. If they're right about silver, that implies a $400 silver price based on a 10:1 silver to gold ratio. There's a big uptick in the precious metals space right now as we speak. Just over the weekend and today on Monday, November 10th, uh gold climbed almost 3% intraday, which is a huge move for gold. Silver's back up above $50. And we'll talk about what's next for both of these metals, specifically silver, with the next guest, Sean Cuklo, CEO of Dolly Varden Silver. Dolly Varden has been busy. And we'll talk about some of its most recent results coming from its drilling program. And we'll talk about what's next for the company and the entire mining industry overall. There's no better person that I can think of to tell us about the industry than a veteran mining CEO himself. So, uh, please welcome Sean. Welcome back, Sean. Good to see you, David. Thanks for having me on. Nice to see you. Yeah, I want to thank you for coming back and uh supporting the program. And let's talk about silver. We had you on the show in Beaver Creek at the Beaver Creek Conference. Uh that was in late September, the Beaver uh at the Precious Metal Summit, Beaver Creek, Colorado. Beautiful place, beautiful conference. Silver just broke above $40 at the time. And um and we hadn't talked to you about your reaction to silver breaking $50. So there we were talking about $40. There was a huge substantial run. There was a rally that lasted months um culminating in the $40 mark that we spoke about when we talked in September. Since then, it hasn't stopped running and now it's broken above $50 for quite some time now. And the last time we have $50 was in 2011 and that lasted a few days. Importantly, the difference here is that it didn't last just a few days. Silver has been consolidating around $50 for almost all of October, about a month now. We're into the middle of November. It's fallen below 50. It's hovered around 48. Now it's back up above 50. Why is it that this time it's so sticky around the $50 mark, whereas the last two times it's happened, this is only the third time it's happened in silver's entire history. The last two times this has happened, silver crashed immediately. Mhm. No, it's a it's a it's a important differentiator when we compare this recent run to and through 50 and the two previous runs to $50. So if we examine the move you know 1979 1980 that was a move where um silver had dramatically moved in a very very short period of time similar to the move it made in April of 2011 right and they were moves that were not sustainable um you know whereas this move it's it's been a lot more gradual right so it's been gradual increase. And it's also important to note, David, that you know what 50 nominal dollars means today versus what 50 nominal dollars meant in 2011 or in 1980 are drastically different. And you know the one of the relative values that I look to look to point at is when I took over as CEO at Dolly Vardarden, I would need 64,000 ounces of silver to purchase and the average home in Vancouver. That was in uh the spring of 2020. Uh today I only need 15,000 ounces of silver, not 64,000 ounces. So I think what's changed is you know with co with the expansion of the money supply growing by 25% during the pandemic uh you know it's it requires that many more dollars to go after these hard assets including silver. What's interesting is if you take a look at this long-term chart of silver um let's look at 1980 for example. It was uh it it touched it for less than a day. It touched $50 for less than a day. a couple hours I believe until it fell back down to its prior base of around $4 um $4.99$5 and then it hovered around that base for multiple decades. You see how silver was trading around $6, $5, that kind of range until it started breaking out around 2004. And the same thing happened in 2011 when we had silver reach $50. It hovered around that the $40 mark for a few weeks and then it crashed down towards its prior base of $16 and it stayed there for a few years about 10 years actually um until it started going back up again because of the quantitative easing following following the pandemic. Now we're in the some would say the middle of this bull run or some would even argue the beginning innings of a new bull run. And um if history were to repeat itself, even if silver were to correct from $50 an ounce, which it hasn't done yet, but even if it were, it would probably retrace to a base that's much higher than $16 an ounce. Probably if you take a look at the charts, $ 32 or $30 an ounce. I don't know if the market is telling us that in the prior two cycles that the fair value of silver really was 16 and then $6 in which case we could kind of extrapolate and say well the fair value of silver is around 40 or 36. Have investors been talking to you about this issue. Is there a new fair value here for silver? It's a it's a great question. And one thing I want to point out as you had that longerterm chart that predated the 1980 price spike to uh $50. Um when the Dolly one of the Dolly Varden mines was operating 1959 was the last year the Torbert mine operated. Uh silver was 85 cents an ounce. So the move from call it 1960 to 1980, you know, if you were to take that same move from our base, that would imply using a $16 base, $800 an ounce. So to try to capture the type of move we had from 1960 to 1980 during this next leg up in the in the bull market, you know, it would equate to an $800 silver price. Now, what are investors saying about sustainable prices? It's very, very difficult for the industry to want to invest in exploration and development when you're in a sub$25 price environment. Once you start moving north of $25, you start having an incentive to explore and to develop. uh you know one of the most legendary silver mining executives in the industry is Keith Newmier and he was recently um interviewed and he talked about how he was celebrating the fact that we have seen the price go from 25 to 50 and we've seen the equities mainly the venture exchange go from 500 points to a,000 points in that same period of time and money has come into the space and exploration is occurring because what that does is it creates creates the um level of endowment needed for larger entities like First Majestic to come in and start acquiring projects. So um you know to answer your question I think you need an environment of north of $30 to incentivize exploration development but look you're going to find mines that are profitable at $20 but you know broadly speaking you need prices north of 25. Yeah. So 2530 is the new 16 basically is what we were discussing earlier. Now Sean, uh M&A activity is a little bit muted now compared to 2011. I this is from based on the conversations I've had with executives like yourself. There's two ways to look at this. One, miners, the seniors and producers are more disciplined with their purchases and their valuations assessments than 15 years ago. or number two, nobody believes in this rally. What's more true for you? Well, look, I think there's two different conversations. There's a gold conversation and a silver conversation. On the gold, on the gold side, you know, what you had during the bare market, you know, which really started in around 2012, 2013 and lasted up until about a year or two ago, you saw mega mergers. You saw you know Bareric and Randold come together, Pneumont and Gold Corp. You saw Agniko Eagle consolidate and become the largest, you know, gold mining company in the sector at $120 billion valuation. So I think as M& as we look forward to M&A because you had these me mega mergers, you know, M&A is going to be different now where those companies are going to rank what they describe as tier one to their business and start selling what were the building blocks to their portfolios and start divesting them to smaller entities. So I think M&A is going to be quite nuanced. It's a totally different conversation in the silver space because in the silver space again there are only 10 primary silver producers and if we examine these silver producers um you know and and something very topical is KR uh Kur just announced last week that they're buying new gold. Well after the purchase of new gold K's um revenue that is silver centric moves down to about 25%. So what how we even define what is a primary silver company if we look at the Pan-American example where like 28% of Pan-Americans's revenues are silver there is really only one silver ccentric entity and that's first Majestic where 55% of their revenues are derived directly from silver. So silver's a tough space because it's so scarce and so rare and because it's predominantly produced as a byproduct. But what we have seen is in a space that used to cover 13 companies is now contracted down to 10. And one could argue that some of those silver ccentric companies are now, you know, becoming gold centric. And so it's become even smaller and smaller and smaller. And so as investors look, as investors start getting priced out of gold opportunities with a $4,000 gold price, as the gold market's becoming more and more expensive, and as retail investors buy silver and the demand for silver increases, and that's why we've seen silver prices outpace um the ascent of gold, uh it's it's going to be even more difficult and more it's going to make the silver centric opportunities even more valuable. There is a massive frenzy in the retail market. I'm not sure if you're aware of this. Um, you know, being a CEO of a mining company, I know you're not running bullion operations, but I've had friends who aren't professional traders, who I never really talk about markets with, tell me, "Hey, David, did you know that Costco is out of silver? What do you think of silver? Should I try to find more? Who's selling silver? Costco's run out. This is crazy. I mean, what what what what what do you make of this retail fervor around silver, which really isn't a mainstream asset when you think about it? I mean, CNBC and Fox News isn't headlining silver every single day. Well, look, I think the first question is why? What, right? And it's it's gold and silver. Why has the gold price doubled? Why has the silver price doubled in the last 6 months? Like, wh why? And I think the answer has to do with confidence. You know, we are in the midst of a confidence in governments in a confidence in currencies and so investors are looking to protect themselves with silver and gold. And then if we examine what's happened in the silver market is central banks um and initially it's it's Russia and it's India. Um but you know India has made a very bold move and I I I made a post about this about a week or so ago. So if you go back to 2009, the uh Reserve Bank of India made a very large substantial gold purchase and this was done at an average price of about $1,000 an ounce gold in 2009. Now that purchase has aged very well. Why did they make that purchase back in 2009? It was to diversify against a falling US dollar. So the RBI, the Reserve Bank of India has been spoton in their outlook and their conviction and and that and that that purchase in gold marks that. Now what did the RM RBI just announced? They announced that what they're potentially looking at bringing silver into their monetary system by allowing investors to use so silver as collateral introducing it into the banking system and they furthermore doing it at a 10:1 ratio. A 10:1 silver to gold ratio. 1 kilo of silver is worth um 10 times less than 1 kilo of gold. So if you think about that now, David, we're in an environment in in in markets where paper markets dominate the price. In one day, you've got 2 billion ounces of silver trading hands in the paper market. However, we're only mining and recycling on an annual basis half of that amount, 1 billion ounces. Okay? So, on a paper market, we're trading two times annual supply. And so, and we're doing this at an 80:1 silver to gold ratio. So, the RBI was right about gold in 2009. If they're right about silver, that implies a $400 silver price based on a 10:1 silver to gold ratio. So the Bank of India is making a bet on silver for a monetary reason. Correct? Not for just a critical metals reason. Let me just get that correct. Listen, the there the rationale of why I can't um speculate on right now. The reality is, you know, India and China have had like, you know, China never had a um a a gold uh backed currency, you know, they you know, they never had a a a golden age. They had a silver age, right? So the big demand for silver is from China, from India, from Russia, from the east. And they are acutely aware that over the last h 100red years as we've looked to electrify the world you know there is no substitute for silver. It's the most conductive metal in the planet, right? Its use in electrification in um in the military-industrial complex is very significant and material and and because of that in the last 100 years postindustrial age we've gone from using 90% in as a monetary metal down to 50%. So we've got an growing industrial demand which has led us to 200 million ounce a year deficits for the last 5 years. So I think the RBMI is RBI is acutely aware of this but the rationale is it because of the critical component like I was just looking at the Trump administration adopting silver as a critical mineral. Now, if if they evoke section 232 and apply tariffs like they have threatened to for copper, what what did we see happen to the copper price in the beginning of summer? You know, we saw a move on copper futures from four up to $6, a 50% move in, you know, in a very short period of time. If we if something were to be similarly introduced to silver, we could see $75 silver overnight. This is a letter that was an open letter. I'll get back to the silver $75 projection just a bit. This is a um open letter uh made to the Minister of Energy and Natural Resources in January 31st or at late January 2023. It outlines why silver should be classified as a critical mineral in Canada. While we believe that an effective argument can be made that silver meets all of the first three criteria, the most striking argument for silver as a critical mineral falls under the scope of criteria number two. So one, number one is essential to Canada's economic or national security. Number two is required for a national transition to a sustainable lowcarbon and digital economy. Number three contributes to Canada serving as a sustain sustainable and strategic source of critical minerals for international allies. In addition, critical minerals must satisfy both these criteria. The mineral supply is threatened. the minimal has a reasonable likelihood of being produced in Canada. You signed this letter along with a few other of your contemporaries in the space. Why did you sign this letter, Sean? Um, I signed this letter because again, um, look, I look at the the the leadership that uh, Keith Newire and First Majestic has uh, you know, has had in the space. Um, First Majestic had reached out and uh educated me about that that this petition they were putting forward. And I look at the work that Keith Newire has done in the space, you know, um, he's got he's got the First Mint uh, for First Majestic in Las Vegas, Nevada. And so I I supported supported First Majestic. And again, I believe there is no substitute for silver. Silver should be a critical mineral. And I think it's uh you know very very important in in military in defense in electrification uh in photovalttaics um but also as a as a monetary metal. So I was happy to support that letter. I want to talk about Dolly Vardarden now and what you're doing with the company because what a mining company does at all levels producer even explorer tells us where the industry and ultimately where the metal may be headed. So, what was your initial reaction to $50 silver, both personally and strategically as a CEO? Well, look, it was rewarding. Um, you know, when I took over the uh the CEO role at Dolly 5 years ago, it was at $16. It was it was the base that you'd highlighted on one of your earlier charts. And so what I was looking at um was I was looking at an environment where I was convinced that from a gold to silver ratio standpoint we could go to 20 to1 to 15 to1. So um I was convinced that we were going to see much higher silver prices. And what I was trying to build was a business that went out and tried to build itself during a depression in the metals. And so as I did not see the larger producers invest in a pipeline of projects, the idea was get out through acquisitions, through good science, build a portfolio of assets that would one day become very very attractive to a producer as they were looking to replace their mining pipeline. As they, you know, every day a producer goes out, they deplete their mineral resources. So that was the idea. So $50 silver, look, it was uh it was rewarding. It was rewarding that $50 silver occurred, but it's all relative. You know, one of the things that happened after I came in as CEO was the pandemic print where we increased the money supply by 25%. You know, one of the things that I never factored in was this growing industrial demand. The fact that photovoltaics were going to take off, the fact that Samsung was going to make a battery for electric vehicles that used a kilo of silver. So the I never factored in the in growing industrial usage. I was just banking on investors looking to gain exposure to silver as a hedge against um systemic failure uh monetary devaluation of their fiat currencies and so it was rewarding. Um however it's all relative you know as the all-in sustaining costs to produce these metals go up the metal prices need to stay ahead of that. Sean, you mentioned to me last time that there's a potentially 200 million ounces annual silver deficit um because of a lot of the reasons you just talked about the the the critical nature of silver in our industry. Now, I'm just going to echo some concerns of not just an investor, but maybe just the average person living in our economy. This is a critical issue, no pun intended, but the silver industry, you know, it's frustrating talking to a CEO and then we hear, "Well, it we may have the mine ready in 1015 years." Well, in 1015 years, this deficit is going to go blown out of control and and either everything spikes up because of inflation or we can't achieve some of the targets that the government and industry have set for sustainable growth in the energy sector or even the transition to a clean energy economy or, you know, the transition to more AI, right? We need silver for a lot of these things and more. yet this deficit isn't going to fix itself. What what what can the industry do to expedite this? Sean, I I don't know about the industry in large, but my strategy is is to focus more on direct shipping or opportunities. So when I entered into the industry 22 years ago, there were projects that were at the exploration development phase that are still at the exploration development stage today, 22 years later. So to your point, how do we get the metal out of the ground sooner, faster, and for less capital? And I think the solution there is to look for highgrade mines that are within close proximity of underutilized production facilities. So my business model has been to focus on grade to focus on DSO opportunities. And I think these opportunities are going to require less capex and shorter permitting timelines because you're not building a mill and tailings. You're just direct shipping the high-grade ore. You said I think correct correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe you said that one in four ounces of silver comes from primary mines. Um is has that ratio changed or do you think it'll change? That's a great question. Um that ratio has not changed. Um you know three out of four ounces come as a byproduct or from a poly metallic operation. Um I the only thing that'll change that is if the price of silver gets high enough that incentivizes some more primary mines to come online. Um that ratio could change but I don't see a change. Is it more expensive to operate a primary mine? Um I think what ends up happening is when you're looking at first of all we got to look at like how silver is just distributed uh and endowed you know throughout mother earth right and so it is a it's it's mainly poly metallic by nature in most of its endowed forms. Um, now if you want to incentivize those one and four operations, if you had a high enough silver price, you could focus on those primary mines. Um, they may be more lucrative than the copper miner who's going to just be focused on the copper that's spinning out the silver as a byproduct. The same as for the lead zinc miner, same as the gold miner. So without, let's assume silver doesn't go to 75 or 100. Without those higher prices, can we see a mine into extinction scenario? Or do we have enough new projects or new technologies that could alleviate this pressure? Look, I made the comment to you a couple of years ago that I think there was going to be a um mineral that comes off the periodic table and gets mined into extinction. Silver had all the attributes for that. Um, now having said that, look, I think that's probably unlikely and very unlikely in my lifetime. Um, and the market has a way, you know, the cure for, you know, as Rick Rule says, the cure for high prices is high prices and the cure for low prices is low prices. So, I think the market has a way to substitute. Um, but again, depending on what the application is, there really is no real substitute for silver, and that's why I made the claim to begin with. But um you know, furthermore, look, I think we're we are now starting to be incentivized to go after primary silver mines now that we're in a $50 price environment. Um and I think as governments uh you know, now designate silver uh as critical and here in Canada, we get some of the we are treated with some of the same advantageous tax treatment as metals like copper. It's going to encourage even more money going towards exploration and development. Well, give us a rundown for our new viewers or maybe viewers who haven't watched our prior discussions. By the way, you should check out Sean's prior interviews with me. He's um uh he's been very appreciate calling for how the markets uh of markets moving. Anyway, uh can can you just tell us about the uh deposit of Delhi Vard and talk about the Golden Triangle of BC in which it is situated? Yeah, look, I I love the Golden Triangle because number one, it's in my backyard and it's uh it's easy to manage from a currency time zone. Uh so it's in northwest British Columbia. It was first discovered about a hundred years ago. But in the last 30 years with glaciers receding, with infrastructure coming in, uh there's been 150 million ounces of gold discovered,2 billion ounces of silver discovered and it's home to two operating mines that one of the biggest precious metals companies in the world operate. That's New Pneumont. And so it's a rich area. And what Dolly has done is built a 100,000 hectare land package with five pass producing high-grade silver mines. And our strategy has been to drill uh you know evoking new technologies and and some good science uh put investing $100 million into exploration. And um what we're on the cusp of is uh a 100 million ounce silver resource with a million ounce gold. Now officially where we are today is we're at 64 million ounces of silver and a million ounces of gold. But I think by the time we put out our next mineral resource estimate, which is scheduled to come out in Q1, I think we'll see a significant increase to existing resources. So we're a company that has $64 million in the treasury. Uh we've got a big silver and gold resource and we've been we've had three pillars to build our business. Raising money, good science and making acquisitions and uh you know we have all the money we need for the next 2 years. We have um got 80 drill holes to report like the ones we reported today. And uh lastly, we're looking at more um we're looking to be more acquisitive. We've made five acquisitions. They've helped grow the company from 20 million to 500 million and looking to make more into the future. Well, uh just to take a look at your balance sheet, which by the way is on your website online for free to access. Uh in as of December 31st, 2024, you've got um $12 million in reserves, roughly $12.5 million in reserves. And if we were to go to the prior year in 2023, uh that was 11.5 million. And then the prior year before that 2022 was only 9.89 less than 10 million. So it's climbed considerably in the last two years alone. Um what was it what contributed to that growth in reserves there? Well, I think I think um discovery oriented drilling um strong accretive acquisitions and we went out we raised $63 million this year. So, when we report our Q3 numbers, which should be out here in the next week or so, uh you'll see um you know, I don't I don't know the exact bank balance in this moment of September 30th, but on the most recent report that I had from October 23rd, we had $64 million in the bank. This is your corporate presentation, the latest one that was updated today. um these deals here uh we don't have to go into detail about why these particular um projects were targeted but just generally speaking how do you decide on which deposit or which area you you want to acquire where you're even interested in well look I I listen to my scientists and the engineers and look at um you know where the mineralization that we currently have under ownership where is it expanding and extending and contiguous ground. We want to pick up on that basis. I also challenge myself to look at mineral inventory, historical numbers, both production and reserve numbers, and look for situations like all three of these acquisitions. We were able to go from 15,000 hectares, we grew by six times in terms of size. So, it was a 600% increase in ground. And we did that at a price of 2% dilution. um we went from if you look at the next slide we went from two past producing mines um to five past producing mines and then if you go to the previous slide I think it's slide seven there um just up to just before the yeah um you know look it was it was on the back of a deliberate decision to list on the New York Stock Exchange. So everything we do and and this is a process that for some companies takes years, for us it took months, but we made a decision in January to make the move to NYC that was accomplished on April 21st. And then those acquisitions that you started the sharing, those happened month of May. So in a 15-day period, we use that share price increase to do all share acquisitions. So we're deliberate in our approach in our thinking and um and you know we've been successful to date at managing to grow the business. Wait, so help me understand this. So let's say if an investor who was skeptical of your M&A strategy were to challenge you and say, "Hey Sean, we can go out and buy new deposits ourselves in the form of investing in other companies. If we wanted to diversify, we can just do that ourselves. We don't need Dolly Varden which so far is not a producing company yet to expand its reserves. We just needed to focus on one reserve. We can expand reserves ourselves in our portfolio simply by buying another company. How do you as a shareholder how is so how do you as a CEO sorry even add value to a company by simply buying other deposits? How do you how would you how would you answer that? It's a great question. So what I look to do is I look to do accretive deals. And so I'll give you an let's focus on one of the acquisitions. We bought the Porter, Idaho deposit, which was known as the richest primary silver mine in the Golden Triangle. So we we were trading at the time at about $2 per ounce in the ground. We bought Porter, Idaho for $8 an ounce in the ground. So for me, you know, if let's say I'll throw out a number here. Let's say our discovery cost is 15 cents an ounce in the ground. Just an arbitrary number. Well, it was more cost effective, was more creative for us to acquire because our currency, we have currency at $2 an ounce. We acquired at 8 cents an ounce. So, look, we're going to make mistakes. Not everything we're going to do is going to be optimal, but um I think when we look back at the five acquisitions we've made and we look back at where the share price was and how the company has grown, I think we've we've demonstrated over the last 5 years that we are a competent team that has not only had growth but sustained growth. And I think that's an important uh differentiator. You know, a lot of companies can move up and launch, but can they sustain it? And I think one of the things I'm most proud about is we've backfilled the rise in value. We've mitigated a lot of volatility. We've seen silver prices as low as $12, as high as $54. And we've we've run a business where we tried to play from a position of strength. And we went out and we bought things when things were cheap, and we went out and raised money when things were fairly valued. So we it was less dilutive and I just think taking a balanced approach um and uh playing with the cards you're dealt is uh important to our success. Well, focusing on your current deposits now and uh moving away from the M&A discussion, tell us about the recent intersect that you just announced. Yeah, it's a big intercept. Um you know, we we drilled uh 26 g of gold over 14 m. And just to put this into the context of any non-technical um observer um you know if you took the grams and you took the meters and you multiplied them they would give you about a 350 g meter interval in gold and um just to put that into context like is that good is that bad is that economic you know typically if you follow some of the best companies in the world they're getting 100 g meter intervals so this is 3 and 1/2 times what spectacular is for for most and um all three of the results that we've put out um September 2nd, October 1st and now November 10th have all been better than 350 g meter gold equivalents. And so this is a new discovery. This is not factored into our existing mineral resource estimate. And most importantly, if you just scroll down a little bit, David, and you look at the image, um, just the one above there of the rocks of the core. Now, why that's so significant is there's a underutilized mill just north of the property. And the one piece of rock next to the drill core is from Ashcot Premier um mine from the 310 level which was running about 10 ounces per ton gold or 300 g per ton gold. That core is running over 433 g per ton. So this is analogous to Ascot's premier. And uh why that's important is if you think about the area at large, there are some very significant gold deposits. Essay Creek, which is in Skina, a $3 billion company. Um Bruce Jack, which was operated by Newmont. There's we're in a very rich area. And what this report tells us is our deposits are similar to those big like Premier when it was operating. David was the most profitable gold mine in North America. And so, you know, we're in we're in the right rocks. It's it's we're in, you know, safe Canada in terms of jurisdiction. It's a super high-grade system and it's unique because it's primary silver and then it transitions to silver and gold. Now, let's say a new investor or somebody who's interested in your company were to say to you, "Sean, with the silver price of $50, why don't you go out and raise even more money right now at much higher valuations?" And then you could potentially expedite the drilling um by investing even more into drilling than what you're doing now. But then existing shareholders might say, "Well, hold on a minute. I don't want to be diluted." So, how do you balance growth right now at $50 an ounce with dilution? It's a great question and ultimately what you have to ask yourself as a as an executive is um you got to balance that dilution and growth. And you know, what I'm looking to do next, David, is I think I'm willing to take on dilution um if it brings in cash flow. Yes. Um so that's that's our next um objective is how would you sorry how would you bring in cash flow? So uh to merge with an entity that is cash flowing. Oh is this a new strategy or have you been working on this thought for quite some time Sean? Well, listen, when I when I started looking at Dolly Vardarden, it would have been six years ago. I had a strategy session in Q4 of 2019, the new board and team did not come in until Q1 of 2020. But as we had a, you know, a whiteboard session on, you know, who do we want to be when we grow up, you know, all of these things were discussed in that meeting and have guided our vision and our strategy. So, it's something that when you're a $20 million company, you're not going to contemplate hundreds of millions of dollars of acquisitions, right? But as the company's grown, as the company's had success, as the metal prices have rerated positively, now we can start thinking about how do we get ourselves operating in the most costeffective, timely, and least dilutive option. Unfortunately, a lot of my counterparts are so focused on merely advancing operations, they do things that hurt the long-term economics of the project, they attach punitive royalties and streams onto the operation. What I'm interested in is ROI for investors. And so I'm looking at creative, minimally dilutive options onto achieving some of those things that you're talking about, accelerating our development plans, taking advantage of $50 silver, but I also want to take advantage of $75 silver and $100 silver. I don't think this run is over. And uh it's important that we staircase our approach in terms of delution. Fair enough. And uh finally, you told me your goal was to transform Dolly Varden uh from an advanced explorer to a tier one or top 10 uh silver equity. How close are you right now by the end of 2025? Look, um where we started 5 and 1/2 years ago was obscurity. You know, we weren't on the map. Today, where I believe we are is we're a top 13 entity. There are 10 primary producers and there are three developer advanced explorers. I think we represent 13 of 13 in that list. Um and so, you know, my goal now is I don't want to stop until we're number one. And so I think that's going to take potentially another 5 years to build if if we get there. You know, there's steep competition. There's some very smart teams that have uh have a big head start. We may never get there, David. Or maybe the only way we get there is we get acquired by number one. Well, I wish you the best of luck, but in the meantime, what is the next major milestone for drilling and or an acquisition idea or plan that that you can announce right now? Yeah, look, one thing I can say with certainty is I'm going to deliver 80 more drill holes, okay? They're coming. Um, and in addition to that, we we're going to continue to challenge ourselves on the acquisition side. And you know, sometimes acquisitions take years. So, we're not going to force it. We in order to pass along the value to our investors like the Porter Idaho transaction, we need to buy something right. And unless it's right and unless we can pass on those savings, we're not looking to do a deal for the sake of doing a deal. We're looking to do good deals where we can pass on those that value to our investors. Well, thank you very much, Sean. Where can we follow uh you and or Dolly Vardarden Silver for updates? Um we're very active on social media, you know, LinkedIn uh X and other platforms. Uh you know, we've got a contact page on on the website dollyardens.com. There's a phone number, there's an email address, you know, feel free to reach out to us and contact us. We like we like talking and interacting with shareholders. I'll be hitting the road going over to London and over to Switzerland. Uh I'll be over there for about 10 or 11 days um meeting one- on-one with both high net worth investors and institutional investors. So uh we're going to be very very active between now and the end of the year. Okay, very good. We'll put the links down below. Make sure to keep up to date there. Thank you very much. We'll speak again soon. Take care for now. Thanks David. Thank you for watching. Don't forget to like, subscribe.