McEwen Inc.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to McEwen Mining's Q3 2021 Operating and Financial Results Conference Call. Present from the company today are Rob McEwen, Chairman and Chief Owner, Anna Ladd-Kruger, Chief Financial Officer, Peter Ma, Chief Operating Officer, Steve McGiven, Executive Vice President of Expiration. After the speaker's presentation, there will be a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. If you would like to withdraw your question, press the pound key. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Rob McEwen, Chief Owner. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon and welcome, fellow shareholders. and Curious Investors. Our fortunes are definitely improving. This is the second consecutive quarter where our production has increased and our production costs have decreased relative to last year. I am delighted to say that our Q3 was a good quarter and year-to-date we are looking far better than we did last year at this time. We are making good progress on our turnaround. Gold and silver production is up at our mines in Canada, America and Argentina and our operating costs are falling. These results are due to the extra efforts of many individuals and in particular to our senior management team at head office and at our mines. But this is just the start. We know there is much more to achieve and we are intently focused and motivated to build an exceptional company that becomes a model for mining in the 21st century. We have made a large investment in exploration over the years and we will soon be showcasing the results of this effort. It is expected to extend the life of our mine and provide the foundation for future gold and silver production growth. I imagine that many of you feel the same way as I do when looking at our share price. I'm not happy with it. And I bet neither are you. But as you will hear today, we have good reason to be optimistic. Our operations are starting to hum. Exploration is starting to reveal the promise of our large land holdings and prolific gold and silver districts. And our very big copper project is coming alive. Another indication that the market is beginning to appreciate our progress is our share performance year to date. It's up 15.7% relative to the industry's performance as measured by the ETF, the GDX, and the GDXJ that have declined 11.6% and 19.7% respectively during the same period. So here's today's agenda. Anna will cover our financials, Peter our operations, and Steve our exploration. I will follow with news on McEwen Copper and provide closing remarks, then open the Q&A segment of the meeting. Anna, the podium is yours.

Thank you, Rob, and good afternoon, everyone. Week 3 was another solid quarter. that demonstrated operational progress in our turnaround strategy, translating into lower costs and a continued strengthening balance sheet. Our average realized gold sales price in the quarter was $1,793 per gold equivalent ounces, down from $1,925 in Q3 of last year, reflecting the lower spot prices. Nevertheless, stronger production from our operations translated into increased sales. Revenue from our 100% owned operations during the quarter was 37.11, a 36% increase compared to the revenue in Q3 of last year. Cash gross profit, which is a non-GAAP measure that includes depreciation, was $6.4 million for the quarter compared to $3.9 million for Q3 The nine-month end of September 30th was $16.1 million versus $2.8 million, a material increase of 575% compared to the same period last year. Much of this change is due to the increased production sales despite lower realized gold prices and decreased per ounce cash costs in both gold bars, and the Plume Mine Transition to Commercial Production at the Fox Complex, one full quarter ahead of schedule. Peter Ma will detail more of our operational achievements shortly. During Q3, we also continued to aggressively invest in our future, with $10.3 million spent on our exploration and advanced projects. This is reflected in reporting a loss of $17.4 million, or minus $0.04 per share for the quarter, compared to a net loss of $9.8 million, or minus $0.02 per share, in Q3 2020. In addition, we booked a $2.2 million reduction in the San Jose mine, which is a $5.2 million reduction compared to Q3 2020. This decrease is primarily due to continued COVID-19-related expenditures of the operations in Argentina. We also spent $4 million on advanced projects during the quarter, which included continued spending for the Fox Complex expansion to PEA. Our total liquid assets as of September 30th is $72.7 million compared to $18.8 million for the same period last year. This is reflecting higher cash and cash equivalents, investments, and precious metal inventories. as well as the $40 million raised for MQ and copper investments. In October, we also received an additional $2.3 million in dividends from our San Jose Mines, bringing the year-to-date dividends at $10 million, compared to a total of $0.3 million received in 2020. Cash used in investing activities of $20.4 million for a nine-month period increased relative to the $7.8 million spent in the same period last year. The change is primarily due to capital development costs incurred at the Fox Complex for our three-month deposit, partially offset by the dividends received from our San Jose loan. Lastly, we ended the quarter with $92.1 million in current assets and a positive working capital at $45.8 million. Thank you. I will now turn the call to Peter Ma, our Chief Operating Officer.

Thank you, Anna, and good day, all. We had another good quarter at McEwen Mining with production trending up, costs going down, and operations on track to meet our 2021 guidance of 141,000 to 160,400 gold equivalent ounces. Production in Q3 2021 was 42,900 gold equivalent ounces, or 41% higher than the same quarter last year. The increased production was attributed to operational improvements at the Gold Bar, Fox, and San Jose operations, which were in line with our expectations. Total production was 114,300 gold equivalent ounces for the nine-month period ending Q3 2021, or 35% higher than the same period last year. From our 100% owned operations, Q3 consolidated cash and all-in sustaining costs per GEO were $13.90 and $15.39 respectively, or 12% and 10% lower compared to last year. For the nine months ended September 30, 2021, are consolidated cash and all unsustaining costs lowered by 14% and 21% respectively compared to last year. Full bar production for Q3 and year-to-date ending September 30th was 12,400 GEOs and 33,900 GEOs representing 82% and 54% increases over last year. Cash and all-in sustaining costs per GL for the quarter were lower by 2% to 1553 and 9% to 1618 respectively compared to last year. Increased production and lower costs were attributed to improved mining efficiencies, processing optimizations, tighter work control, and reduced COVID impacts. Moving on to Canada at Fox Complex. Production in Q3 2021 for the nine months ended September 30, 2021 in the Black Fox and Fruit Mines with 8,300 geos and 20,600 geos representing a 43% and 26% increase respectively relative to the geos produced in the comparable periods in 2020. Ash and all unsustaining costs per GEO were $1,154.00 and $1,423.00 in Q3 2021, 27% and 13% lower than 2020 respectively. Ash costs and all unsustaining for GEO were $1,102.00 and $1,339.00 for the nine months ended September 30, 2021, both 23% lower in the comparable period than 2020. Higher production and lower costs were the result of more efficient mining, increased utilization of milling capacity, better grade control, decreased COVID impact, and reaching commercial production at firm ahead of schedule. The optimization of the mine design and underground development and improved capital spend effectiveness further contributed to the improvement. The company is looking forward to releasing the FOX Complex expansion growth results, model updates, and preliminary economic analysis in Q4 2021. The work is targeting higher gold production, a longer mine life, and lower costs than historically achieved at the FOX Complex. In Q3, El Gallo produced 600 GEOs from the original leaching, and activities are winding down towards early 2022. Multiple strategic initiatives are being evaluated. Moving now to Argentina at the San Jose mine. Q3 2021 attributable production was 10,800 gold ounces. That's 39,000 silver ounces for a total of 21,600 gold equivalent ounces, or 36% higher than last year. The GEO production year-to-date, ending September 30th, increased by 43% compared to last year. The Q3 cash and all unsustaining costs per GEO sold were $1,100 and $1,466, respectively. These decreased from last year's costs of $1,269 and $1,538, respectively. The increased production and reduced costs were attributed to higher ore tons processed I will now turn the call over to Steve McGibbon, Executive Vice President of Exploration.

Thank you, Peter. Exploration activity continued during Q3 across all projects in Canada, the United States, and Argentina. Our principal exploration goal remains to cost-effectively make discoveries and to extend deposits adjacent to our existing operations in order to contribute to near to medium-term gold production growth. To that end, we have solid results from the recent quarter on which to build. Firstly, I will update on the work at our 49% owned San Jose property operated by our joint venture partner, Hossield Mining. 100% basis, San Jose exploration was $2.7 million in 2003 and on track to meet the 2021 exploration budget of $9.3 million. San Jose has been in operation since 2007. Exploration activities at San Jose, located in Santa Cruz Province, were focused on the Talcan Norte and Sevilla near-mine targets. Exploration drilling in these areas returned encouraging results, including 6.3 meters of 44.4 grams per ton gold in the Batana vein, 1.9 meters of 14.5 grams per ton gold and 342 grams per tonne silver in the Mena vein and 4.3 meters of 14.9 grams per tonne gold and 1381 grams per tonne silver in the Amelia vein. Drilling is expected to continue through Q4 2021. The Q3 brownfield program at San Jose carried out 6,900 meters of drilling, adding further high-grade inferred resources during the quarter and bringing the inferred resources added year to date to approximately 121,000 GEOs, which is 9.1 million silver equivalent ounces. Longer term, we recognize the tremendous exploration potential of this property and its products. Newmont's Cerro Negro mine is only 20 kilometers away and largely surrounded by our nearly 700,000 acre property that remains underexplored. At the Gold Bar mine and properties in Nevada, And in Q3 2021, for the nine months ended September 30th, 2021, we incurred $1 million and $2.7 million in exploration respectively at both the Gold Bar mine and Tonkin mine areas. At the Gold Bar mine area, we are committed to targeting potential unmined zones and expanding known mineral structures. Our exploration efforts are focused on de-risking the geological and metallurgical models and expanding resources to replace mining depletion. Our Tonkin property sits immediately south of world-class Carlin-style deposits being developed by Barrick Gold. Tonkin has not seen exploration activity While Gold Bar was being built and production stabilized. But we recognize the long-term value creation that could be realized by committing exploration dollars here. During the three months ended September 30th, drilling was activated at the Tonkin Rooster Deposit, located some 25 miles north of Gold Bar, which generated positive initial results starting from surface, including oxide-dominant drill intercepts of 1 gram per ton gold over 57.9 meters and 0.65 grams per ton gold over 71.6 meters. with both likely amenable to heat bleaching. The roots-to-deposit is structurally complex and includes mineralization in both lower plate limestones and upper plate cherts and soapstones. The oxide material has the same host, rocks, as we see at Gold Bar, whereas the more refractory-style mineralization, which can be very high-grade, is hosted in the comus formation, also host the multi-million ounce ore deposits at Turquoise Ridge. We are very encouraged by intercepts in the Comas that include coal TS-208 at 3.23 grams per tonne gold over 38.1 metres and locally grading over 14 grams per tonne. An ongoing program of remapping, C.F.A. LL.M. C.F.A. LL.M. We incurred $4.2 million in Q3 exploration expenditures in 2021, the majority of which was deployed at the stock property with lesser focus at Grey Fox. The stock property includes a historic stock mine, current mineral resources at Stock East, and an important 2019 gold discovery at Stock West. Our FOX Complex processing plant also resides at stock. Our overall strategy in 2021 at stock includes delineation and expansion of known mineralization of stock less and the stock mine in support of a production vision that will be detailed in our upcoming FOX Complex PEA. Also, we are ranking and drill testing targets likely to host the next important discovery on the property. In Q3 2021, the total of 19,400 meters of surface exploration drilling was completed with potentially important ramifications. Of particular interest was hole S21202. which returned 4.3 grams per ton gold over 21 meters of estimated width. This hole is a 200 meters from the Stock West Discovery Area and also resides some 250 meters above S-1995, 27.2 grams per ton gold over 7 meters in 2019. These holes are located at the projected intersection of the Stockwest East Plunge and the Stockmine West Plunge, and they will command further drilling in 2022. These intercepts, which have far more similarities to the geometries and grades being successfully mined at home versus black box, are very exciting to us. Additional discovery potential is being assessed in the footwall of the stock mine where we believe the host unit for the Stockwest deposit called the Green Carbonate or CGR unit exists, but has been very poorly tested in the past. A discovery here would be very beneficial owing to the proximity of underground infrastructure. For this FOX complex expansion, a PDA summary, an independent engineering group has been engaged to complete the PDA on the FOX, Gray Fox, Black Fox, Prune stock and fuller resources using our existing centralized milling capacity of stock. The objective is to outline A potential low-cost, near-term business case to increase production and mine life for the Fox Complex. The PDA activities for the nine months ended September 30th included ongoing drilling, modeling and mineralization, baseline work to support permitting, environmental, mine planning, and trade-off studies, Metallurgical Assessment Reviews and Process Flow Sheet Assessments and Preliminary Cashflow Analysis. The PDA will include resource estimates and an underground design, which are expected to be completed in late June 4 this year. Thank you, and I will turn the presentation back to Rob.

Thank you, Steve. Okay. Let's talk about McEwen Copper and how we see it benefiting McEwen Mining. As some of you know, its key asset is Los Azules, which is a big project. How big? It's one of the world's largest undeveloped copper porphyry deposits not owned by a major mining company. Its total indicated and incurred resources are estimated to be 32.89 For comparative purposes, let's use today's gold, silver, and copper prices to see how large this resource would be if converted to a gold equivalent. The answer will likely surprise you. It is 82 million gold equivalent ounces. I see McEwen Copper becoming a powerful value driver for McEwen Mining, for us. However, to make that happen, we needed money that McEwen Mining didn't have, and we needed to move fast to catch the limited weather window to access the project this season. We felt that the fastest way to fund the advancement of Los Azules from its current The preliminary economic assessment stage and advance it to a preliminary, a pre-feasibility stage was to do a private financing. We estimated that $60 to $80 million, including contingencies, would be sufficient to deliver a pre-feasibility study. To kick-start the financing, I personally provided a lead order of $40 million and some others have subsequently followed. With these initial funds, we are proceeding to de-risk and advance the project. So far, we have assembled a very talented and experienced copper team. We have begun construction of a new road to make the site accessible 12 months of the year rather than the current five months. The pre-feasibility study will include a 53,000-meter drill program to convert the inferred resources, to indicate it, to complete environmental, technical, and metallurgical studies, and to fund local infrastructure and training. We are moving forward quickly. Our financing remains open on terms previously disclosed. The minimal order is $250,000. Let me share with you some of the math and reference 12 of the world's large copper projects purchased between 2010 and 2008. In this group, there were four projects at the PEA stage or preliminary economic assessment stage of development. And the price paid per copper equivalent pound ranged from .2 cents to 3.4 cents per copper equivalent pound. Due to the current remote nature of Los Azules, the illiquidity of our private placement, some geopolitical concerns, and being at its preliminary economic assessment stage, Los Azules, for the purpose of our financing, is valued at $175 million, which is equal to 0.6 of a cent per copper equivalent pound. As I said earlier, we are using the funds to advance Los Azules to a pre-feasibility study stage. Only two of the 12 largest projects purchased were at the pre-feasibility level, The purchase price for these two projects was 13.4 cents and 15.5 cents per copper equivalent pound. Clearly a significant increase in value over a preliminary economic assessment stage project. Let's imagine for a moment that when the Los Azules pre-feasibility study is completed, that one, Los Azules still has total resources of 32.89 billion copper equivalent pounds. Two, the private financing of 80 million has been fully subscribed and thereby reducing McEwen Mining's ownership to 69% of McEwen copper. And three, Los Azules is valued at a much lower price per pound and the two pre-feasibility stage projects that I just mentioned. What could McEwen Mining's ownership in McEwen Copper be worth at three or five cents per copper equivalent pound? The answer is quite attractive. It is 681 million to over 1.1 billion respectively. This math, this leverage to the price of copper is why we have created McEwen Copper and why we believe it could be a significant value driver for McEwen Mining. When combined with the improving performance of our mines producing gold and silver, we believe we have a very compelling future. And our current share price presents an attractive entry point. I would now like to open the session for questions. Operator?

Thank you, sir. As a reminder, to ask a question, you will need to press star one, star followed by the number one on your telephone. To withdraw your question, press the pound key. Your first question comes from the line of Heiko Hau of HCW. Your line is now open.

Hey, Rob. Thanks for taking my questions. Hope you're well. Happy HICO. Thank you. Happy to. Always. Hey, your 2021 guidance for gold bars is currently at $37,000 to $45,000. That's an $8,000 gap between the high and the low end of the guidance, and there's, you know, about 55 days left in the year. For contrast, trendline in Q3 production into Q4, you'd be at $33,900 plus 12.4, give you $46,300. So, I guess, can you just walk us through your thoughts of what factors could cause you to come in at either end of this, you know, vast span in your guidance range, please?

Sure. I'll ask Peter to answer that question. Sure. Thanks, Rob.

Hi, Heiko. Hope you're well. Yeah, the 37 was the feasibility number, and we're obviously on the trend to beat that. There were some opportunity ounces that we couldn't quite get a handle on in terms of guiding at the feasibility stage. So we are trending. We were targeting kind of midpoint, and we're trending... C.A. C.A. C.A. C.A. I think those factors led us to establishing those ranges last year.

There could be one other hypo as well, and that is we're changing contractors, and so there might be an interruption, a brief interruption there. We want to have a contingency for that.

Got it. Also, you mentioned in the release that, and this is a quote, the COVID-19 pandemic is not materially affecting our operations or our future strategic plans and objectives, end quote. While I assume this holds true for quite a few firms, I don't think I've really seen it in writing in many releases thus far. Are you still feeling any sort of impact with regards to costs, quarantine expenditures, workforce costs, etc.? Or is that essentially just gone? I guess what I'm saying is, are you talking about future impact or about current impact? And then on that same token, I don't know if this is a number that you have offhand, do you know what percentage of your workforce is vaccinated?

It varies depending on site. I'm of the understanding Gold Bar is the least vaccinated. You might want to come in there, Peter, knowing that.

Yeah, Gold Bar, we're around 50% vaccination rate. At Fox, I believe we're around 75% to 80%. It might be just above 80%, actually. A lot of it is cultural in Nevada. There's a strong sort of culture of not vaccinating there. I think we're not the only ones in that arena experiencing that. Canada and our corporate, of course, we're... We're primarily all double vaccinated. So that's the status of the operations. We still have our protocols in place from prior. I think we are experiencing the same challenges the industry is experiencing and supply chain. We're looking at the supply chain very carefully as we speak. We've recruited a global procurement lead to join our executive team who just joined earlier this year. And part of his brief is looking at some of the potential risks to production and making sure we respond appropriately. As far as active cases, we don't have any at current at our site. I think a photo call. were quite effective last year. I think the comment we're referring to in our QT results is that we didn't take a temporary suspension of operations, and that has contributed to higher, obviously, production, and that's what we meant by that.

Wonderful. Thank you all. Stay safe, everyone. Thanks, Michael.

Your next question comes from the line of Jake Sokalski of Alliance Global Partners.

Hello, Jake. Hey, Robin. Thanks for taking my question so far as well. Indeed. So just looking at gold bar costs, should we expect them to drop back down to the 1,200, 1,300-ounce range over the longer term as capital investments moderate? Or do you think all outstanding costs around 1,500 is sort of the new norm there going forward?

Over to you, Peter.

Thanks. Hi, Jake. Well, I mean, I think you've got a pretty good view with the updated feasibility study. You know, at this stage, I wouldn't be guiding anything different than that cost profile. Next year, we need to raise or, sorry, expand the footprint for our heat bleach pad. Other aspects are the Gold Bar South project, which is I'm actually trending ahead of schedule on permitting. It's on final review of the NEPA process, and we expect in Q4 to have approval to go forward. And in the feasibility, it shows Go Bar South in the second half of next year. We're looking to accelerate that and bring production forward. I think that's the key for Go Bar is... is bringing production forward and offsetting some of those capital costs next year. And then once 2022 is completed, you can see in the feasibility, we start cash and all in sustaining drop quite significantly and we're in quite a cash flow generation phase there for the six-year mine life. And that's part of what Steve's looking at in the exploration of some of these near-term Potential allowances of a fair amount of drilling has also been happening on Gold Bar this year at the Atlas, which is the old Gold Bar site ridge. We're going to be going back into Cabin. We've identified more mineralization and extension of the Cabin Ore. And as well, we're turning back into Pitt to see as we get towards the Pitt east and west, are there more opportunity answers to bring in both So that's the strategy there, but at the moment, the best guidance we have is feasibility. Okay, that's helpful.

Moving over to the FOX complex, you know, assuming the PEA is positive later in DQ4, you know, how quickly should we expect you guys to move forward with a positive development decision or execution, I guess, of the new mine plant?

Yeah, very good question, and I was expecting that, you know, it being a PDA, the general thought would be we'd have to follow a pre-FF and feasibility. Of course, this is a unique situation in that we have, you know, an operating mine at Froome, a mine where we continue to explore black box that we could hopefully bring on back online again in the future, and a stock mill and tailings facility that's got capacity for And so the PA objective was exactly that. What could we bring on quickly towards production? And so I would say we chose the PA because it was quite a complex set of deposits to understand and bring together. We're obviously an operating mine and beyond feasibility and some of our knowledge of costs and things like that. So our whole idea there was once we understood that pathway to value, we would be looking at where could you access quickly and bring on near-term production at low cash and on sustained costs and increased scale. As you recall, those were the objectives. I think we trended very well there. The two areas that we see advancing quickest are the stock west deposits and Gray Fox. And so look to the end of Q4 here where we release those results. They're fairly exciting and look forward to growing on that strategy even further.

Okay, fair enough. And then just more of a housekeeping item. On exploration, I mean, you guys were pretty aggressive this year, which was good to see. You've had some strong results. Should we be modeling a similar level of exploration in 2022?

I'll let Steve handle that. We're right in budget time, but he can give you more of a flavor of that.

Yeah, I would say in general terms, specifically for... Nevada, and Ontario. Well, specific to Ontario, the flow-through funding that was raised in fourth quarter last year, we anticipate that exploration funding will be depleted by the end of 2022, and we have a planned exploration program that is... C.F.A. C.F.A. C.F.A. The next question comes from the line of Joseph Rieger of Roth Capital Partners. Hi, Jeff. Hey, Robin. Hey, how's it going?

So first, obviously, congrats on having a second consecutive strong quarter of production. It's good to see things going in the right direction here. With that said, a couple of minor questions, maybe following on something Jake was just hitting on with the exploration spend. So far you have spent about $18 million at the income statement level on exploration. Should we expect a similar company-wide exploration budget next year? Should we expect it to decline somewhat now that you're finalizing this PEA over at Black Fox or maybe get some of the gives and takes there?

I would expect it to be a little lighter next year as we move out of the PEA, move forward from the PEA at the Fox Complex. and there's also at Gold Bar probably there's some areas we want to get on to that will probably increase our expenditure there. And Hoss Shield, our partner in Argentina is still moving along there. Quite excited about some of the results they're getting. But I'd say it's It's probably less by maybe 20%. Okay, that's helpful.

And then, forgive me if I missed it, but did you have any outlook in the release or in the MD&A on your thoughts on the OGAIO and the Phoenix expansion? You know, any update there? You know, maybe it's not immediate, but, you know, are you guys still planning on potentially doing that expansion in the near term?

Peter, do you want to jump in? Sure. Thanks, Jo.

Yeah, it's a good question. I don't know whether to put that in, so I'm glad you actually asked. We've been working on a number of strategic alternatives. One of those is a low capex alternative for Phase 1. So if you recall, the initial capex for Phase 1 was around $42 million in the feasibility. And that gave us sort of six, seven years of gold production. What we've actually identified is two lower capex opportunities, which were right in the proposal phase, targeting somewhere around $25 million capex for phase one. So we're trying to find ways to advance that project, whether it's internally or with a partner or with other strategic alternatives such as a sale. So I think all told, that option is looking quite promising. It's early yet, though, so we need to validate technical parameters and costing Okay, that's helpful. And then, Rob, just kind of a big picture question. I mean, Black Fox is headed in the right direction.

You guys got the firm deposit up early. Gold Bars had a good turnaround and now those two give you two steady state operations going forward from here. MSC is steady state with your partner there. Longer term, how do you take the company from call it 150,000 gold equivalent to half a million and make it more of a mid-tier producer?

Well, one, we need a A stronger share price before we go looking for acquisitions or combinations. We're putting a lot of energy into McEwen Copper where we see a significant value accretion possible by moving from a PEA to a pre-feasibility stage. I would say in the near term that would be the largest generator, potential generator. And from there, McEwen Mining at this point is the majority shareholder. And what we've been doing with McEwen Copper is working to surface the value of that asset. It's somewhat unique in this world. In terms of its size and its medium altitude, not as high as some of the others in the country, so easier operating conditions. And that's where I think we could get some of the power to move to that next size.

Okay. Thanks for the call. I'll turn it over. You're welcome.

Again, if you would like to ask a question, simply press star then the number one on your telephone keypad now. Your next question comes from the line of John Tumazov of John Tumazov's Very Independent Research, LLC.

Hey, Rob.

Hi, John.

Could you give us any drilling update of Os Child at San Jose? The veins that might continue from Newmont onto your property sound exciting and vice versa. And second, you mentioned earlier that maybe if it were sold it would be $150 to your company. I'm hoping it's $200 or $250 or more. If that pot of gold rained money on you, would it be reasonable to say you pay off all the debt first Put a little bit of money more into McEwen Copper, pay some kind of special dividend, and have a little cash in your treasury for the guy that wants you to be 500,000 ounces next week.

All of the above sound great. Yes, we'd be using funds to retire the debt. We could use it in the QN Copper. Special dividends are always close to my heart. When I was building Gold Corp, we got to a point where we are paying a dividend every month. And when I look ahead, that would be a fabulous position to get into. In terms of the exploration, Steve, would you care to comment on John's question?

Yeah, I guess I would just highlight specific to San Jose and the potential extensions from the Saranago mine onto the property. We did get an update on the brownfields program with just under 7,000 years of drilling. We added 121,000 GEOs, but I think we really regard that as... Perhaps the tip of the iceberg. We know that there's tremendous potential on the property. We don't have an update currently on what the drill plan is for 2022, but the results that we've seen year-to-date tell us that we need to keep pushing there and moving forward. The results have been good, and the grades of the drilling steps have been good, and we believe that this mine still has a very bright future.

Several parties, John... I'm sorry.

Go ahead, Ron.

I was just going to say that there have been several parties that are interested in our interest in San Jose and in the whole property, but up until very recently, Argentina had a very restricted policy about letting foreign visitors come in, and so there was an inability to do an on-site due diligence. That's now been... Steve, I apologize.

I haven't listened to a Hochschild presentation in a few years. They may have made some public comments that I missed. You know how there's more gold and silver companies than people walking the streets in Toronto. Can't keep up with them all. What have they said publicly about San Jose drilling?

Steve, did you hear John's question?

Yes, I did. Sorry, I just had some trouble with my phone. I can't speak to specifics. comments by Hochschild on the program as a whole. That update certainly from them will come from the budgeting process and the plan for 2022.

I'm very optimistic, Rob. I think most of the world's major silver companies are in Santa Cruz province somewhere.

Yes.

And your land position is multiple. Your and Hochschild's land position is multiples of Newmont's. and Goldcorp spent over four and a half billion U.S. there. So I'm hoping you're just very modest and humble, Rob.

Well, it'd be very nice if Newmont decided to spend like Goldcorp did when they bought that property and look towards ours. Thank you. Thank you, John.

There are no further questions at this time. Mr. Rob McGrune, I will turn the call over to you.

Thank you, operator. That's the end of our conference call, and I'd like to thank everybody for joining us. Best wishes for a successful investment.

Thank you for participating in today's conference call.