Thank you for standing by. My name is Jordan, and I will be your conference operator today. At this time, I would like to welcome everyone to the Americas Gold and Silver third quarter 2026 conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, 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 star one again. All participants are limited to two questions only. Thank you. I would now like to turn the call over to Paul Huet, Chairman and CEO of Americas Gold and Silver. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Jordan. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to Americas Gold and Silver's third quarter 2026 conference call. As a reminder, this call is being recorded and will be available on our website's Events page. We will also reference a slide deck during today's webcast presentation. Joining me today are Warren Varga, our Chief Financial Officer, who will review the quarter's financial results, and Oliver Turner, our Executive Vice President of Corporate Development. Before I open up, I just want to say something here. I was reminded two days ago that it was Veterans Day or Remembrance Day, depending on which country you are in, and we have a number, quite a few veterans who work for us. To each of you that have served, I just want to personally thank each and every one of you. We are all reminded that we come to work for our families.
We do all this hard work for a purpose, and those of you who have served, we thank each and every one of you. I did want to open up by saying that. I will begin with our operational and strategic highlights before turning the call over to Warren. As normal, cautionary notes over on slide three of the slide deck. Please review the cautionary statements concerning forward-looking information and non-GAAP measures in our third quarter MD&A, earnings release, and presentation. Unless otherwise noted, all dollar figures today discussed are in US dollars. Over to slide five on the deck, the highlights. As always, safety comes first for us. I want to recognize our operating teams for maintaining zero lost time accidents since March of 2025 at Galena and April of 2025 in Mexico at Cosalá.
That achievement reflects daily discipline and a strong commitment from our operating and safety teams, particularly as we execute a substantial growth program. The third quarter for Americas Gold and Silver was a tremendous milestone for us. We produced just a little over 800,000 ounces of silver. On a silver equivalent, it was right around 940,000 silver equivalent ounces and sold about 860,000 ounces of silver. That has never been done in this company. In the 28-year history of this company, that has never been done. I have to give good credit and kudos to the entire team from the top to the bottom for breaking a 28-year record, and one that we are very happy to be looking forward to breaking this quarter. Well done to the team.
For the first three quarters of 2026, we produced about 2.3 million ounces of silver, and we are on pace to achieve the lower end of our guidance and existing full-year production, that 3.2 million-3.6 million ounces of silver. Our AISC is likely going to be a little bit on the higher end of our guidance, but still at our guidance. I just want to remind folks and reiterate something that I said even a year ago when I got here. These are big step-ups year-over-year. When we look at what the company has done before, what we're doing, these are massive milestones and big, big increases that we're doing in a district that's been around for 100 years. It's important to recognize that this performance came while we continued to advance critical development and are modernizing Galena. We continue the strength of Cosalá.
It provides us flexibility to accelerate the underground, and that will support Galena's aggressive future production as well. I'm going to go over to slide six, if you don't mind, at Cosalá. Cosalá delivered another exceptional quarter, producing right around 420,000 ounces, call it roughly around that, of silver, at a 23% increase quarter-over-quarter, 28% increase compared to the third quarter of 2025. This strong performance was driven by higher silver grades, improved underground movement from our newer equipment, and continued advancement into the heart of the higher-grade EC120. Despite processing less tonnage, the operation delivered significantly higher silver production, demonstrating the strength of the ore body and the team's ability to maximize production efficiently. I certainly want to take a moment here and recognize our team in Mexico for their outstanding execution this quarter. I want to reiterate something else here.
Last year, we had a record in Mexico. As a company, we created a record. In the first 10 months of 2026, we broke that record. We still have two more months left, so we're going to shatter last year's record already. When we talk about some of these milestones and some of these initiatives, I think people fail to They get sucked into the market and silver prices and get discouraged, but we are delivering some of the greatest results in the company's history. I can't not continue to reinforce that and continue to lead our people at both sites and continue to thank them and praise them for all their hard work. Copper production was also increased 30% year-over-year to approximately 736,000 pounds. Combined with higher byproduct credits, this strong operational performance contributed to a meaningful reduction in cash costs.
Our cash costs were declined to around just a little over $14 per silver ounce compared to around $25 an ounce in Q3. So, tremendous cash savings there as we continue to deliver and mine in the different areas. Over to slide seven. Beyond the strong production results, we are particularly encouraged by the continued exploration success at Cosalá. Recent infill drilling and step-out drilling at San Rafael Upper and the EC120 zones have delivered exceptional results, further reinforcing our confidence in the quality and the potential of these ore bodies, and specifically these assets. If some of you have the slides open, just look at that slide seven, and I'll talk about one intercept here specifically. If you look at SR583, it returned 20.5 m, a grade of 654 g per ton, and a 1.5% copper.
That is outside of the boundary of our 2025 Inferred Mineral Resource inventory. I am just going to pause here for 10 seconds. If you were to look at that slide and just look at some other results, I named off one, but there are other results, like 14 m of 598 g, 16.6 m of 300 g, 22 m of 392 g. The difference here is we are seeing results here at Cosalá, people, results of grades that are very, very similar to what we see at Galena. They are world-class, except they are anywhere from eight to 10 times the width. This is what we are getting to unlock in Mexico, which has been astonishing for us, so we are very, very excited. Many of you know that our Beta Hunt mine when we were at Karora had some exceptionally wide zones similar to this.
We had a lower-grade pool back then, but it was so profitable because of the width, and that is what we are seeing here at Cosalá. There is no doubt in my 35+ years of mining, I have never seen any widths followed by grades like this. These are some of the best you are going to see, world-class. I am extremely excited to get these zones into a mine plan in 2027 and beyond. Cosalá is certainly shaping up to be a very exciting asset with these kinds of intercepts. Look, again, if you look over to slide seven, you will be able to see what we are seeing. They are about five times the average grade of what we had previously modeled in the last technical update. So, stay tuned as we update the newest resource with this newer information.
Overall, the resource conversion drilling across San Rafael and EC120 has consistently returned grades two to three times the previously reported Inferred Mineral Resource, like I was saying. These results are particularly encouraging as we continue to better define the mineralization and always evaluate the opportunities to enhance our future mine plan. It is important to keep in mind that our recent drilling results, and I said this, but I am going to repeat it, was not included in the 2025 Mineral Resource and Mineral Reserve estimate. They demonstrate potential for additional resource growth and grade improvement, which will be evaluated as part of our future Mineral Resource estimates. Looking ahead to 2027, I am extremely proud and excited about what Cosalá can do and continue doing.
The operation, as I mentioned a little earlier, has already surpassed its previous annual production record in the first 10 months of 2026, putting us on track to have yet another record year, which we will do. With strong operational momentum, continued to accessing the higher-grade mineralization, and encouraging exploration results, we believe Cosalá is extremely well-positioned to build on this success and remain a very strong key contributor to our long-term production growth strategy. Cosalá's performance also played a major role in helping Americas Gold and Silver create a record that I talked about earlier in my presentation of accomplishing 800,000 ounces of silver in a quarter. This milestone reflects exceptional performance from our Mexican operations. Again, I do want to say hats off to our entire team. I hope many of you are listening on this call. Thank you for all your efforts.
Over to slide eight about Galena, I just want to remind people about something at Galena. As we continue to invest in Galena and we continue to look down the road at Galena, we are not building something that we are trying to have a record quarter after quarter after quarter. What we are trying to do is something that will sustain for a very, very long time. We are building something and putting in infrastructure and spending money on something that will sustain something that has never been done before. The amount of effort and hard work we are doing in the mine that has been around for 100 years, remember, it has been starved for capital forever. These investments were very much needed at Galena, but we are building something that we want to make sure can be sustainable for a very, very long time.
Our priority remains building the foundation for sustainable higher-rate production. The complex produced just under 400,000 ounces of silver in the quarter. As the operation continued recovering from some of the temporary interruptions we experienced in Q2, and prioritizing setting up our infrastructure improvements and mine plan, again, like I said, for the long-term sustainable production gains compared to just short-term flash in the pan. Following number three shaft improvements, we have been able to focus on much needed and much required waste development ahead of our future production areas in our silver copper zone. This work is very essential to expanding our long-hole mining program and opening additional panels. We are seeing meaningful productivity gains as we continue to bring new high-grade stopes into production using long-hole mechanized mining and utilizing remote mucking.
We increased the C cycle times from anywhere from, I do not know, 150 to 200 tons per shift, compared to what we used to have, 35- 50 tons per shift, using the conventional underhand cut-and-fill. Many of you analysts got to see it, rather than using backways, we are using a modernized long-hole drill. We continue to modernize the underground fleet. We did not have any remote controls underground. We did not have any trucks underground. They are now underground. They are operating. Our communications, our backbone, a leaky feeder system.
We now finally have a leaky feeder system that allows us to speak into the mine, that allows a shift boss, for example, who we used to be able to maybe speak about 15% of the time, we are going to be able to speak to them 100% of the time while they walk around doing their job day in, day out with this new communication system that we have implemented and adopted. These are all interdependent projects, and their benefits will build over time. Our focus is on executing them safely in the right sequence rather than sacrificing the longer-term plan for short-term tons. Over to slide nine, exploration and people. Exploration success at Galena is another reason we are obviously extremely excited. Sorry about that. On the operating level 49, we intersected 1.2 m of 1,061 g silver, 0.7% copper, and 0.6% antimony.
This is again another new discovery, but it's not the only one. We've had six brand new discoveries at Galena since we've been here over the last 18 months. These assay results are regularly intersecting higher-grade silver than currently modeled in the resource. It's the same situation as Cosalá. Many of these results represent potential upside, and they were excluded from the 2025 Mineral Resource inventory. They will be included in our next version of our resource and reserve update. We're looking forward to adding many of the drilling that we have done. These results are part of the largest exploration Mineral Resource conversion drilling our company has ever had in the history of a company.
Across our operations, our people are delivering these advances while maintaining a strong safety culture, and I want to thank them for that. The team at Galena that we've assembled with Chris Corley, Evan Pelletier, and Ian McMullen are doing an amazing job at really revitalizing that district, leading our team to some of the things that have never been done in that district. We're very proud of Galena and where it's going and building the momentum that we're doing. With that, I'm just going to take a moment here and let Warren talk about some of the financial opportunities we have in front of ourselves. Over to you, Warren.
Thank you, Paul, and good morning, everyone. Today, we reported our consolidated interim unaudited financial results for the three and nine months ended September 30, 2026. Financial statements and MD&A are available on our website and through SEDAR+ and EDGAR. The third quarter net revenue was $51 million, an increase of over 70% from $30 million in Q3 2025, primarily due to the higher realized metal prices and increased silver production in the quarter. Year-to-date revenue totaled $167 million, an increase of 106% year-over-year. We sold approximately 860,000 ounces of silver, an increase of 17% during Q3, at an average realized silver price of $61 per ounce, compared with $40 per ounce in the prior year quarter, in line with the market prices for silver.
We reported a net loss of $5.6 million for the quarter, compared with a net loss of $16 million in Q3 2025. The improvement primarily reflected higher revenue and the elimination of the metal contract liabilities, which were fully settled in the second quarter of this year. Adjusted earnings were a loss of $4.9 million, or $0.02 per share. Adjusted EBITDA was $9.3 million, or $0.03 per share, compared with $1.9 million in the third quarter of 2025. In the quarter, cash costs averaged $3 per silver ounce sold, and all-in sustaining costs were approximately $43 per silver ounce sold. Year-to-date AISC averaged approximately $39 per silver ounce sold.
We ended September with $63 million in cash and equivalents, with $23 million in working capital, in line with our expectations, as the company continues to deploy capital into its consolidated revitalization and growth plans at both of our mines.
Subject to satisfying certain condition, an additional $15 million is available under our existing term loan facility, providing the company with available liquidity of $113 million. I'll now turn the call over to Oliver.
Thank you, Warren, and good morning, everyone. Our operational progress discussed by Paul is now supported by a stronger financial and strategic platform. Following the settlement of our remaining precious metals delivery obligations earlier this year in the second quarter, where we used our paper strategically, we have removed significant variable metal price-linked obligations and simplified our capital structure going forward. Just like ongoing operational improvements, these adjustments now allow more of our profits going forward to flow through to our shareholders. At Galena, our iterative flywheel approach to continuous improvement, identical to the strategy we executed previously at two other companies in the early years of those turnarounds, is beginning to deliver results. Much of these improvements do not show up immediately in quarterly numbers as we build the foundation for a very significant and sustainable silver production base in the Silver Valley.
To achieve this takes constant iteration and compounding operational adjustments to reach the level required to transform into a major silver operation. We're certainly excited by the progress we get to see every day and to date, and remain well on our way to achieving our targets. We also continue to advance a differentiated growth story built around high-grade silver and critical minerals. At Galena, our ongoing exploration development programs support the longer-term opportunity in not just silver, but also copper and antimony. Our capital markets profile has also continued to strengthen. Americas named to the TSX 30 for 2026, ranking us as one of the best-performing companies over a three-year period. In October, we published our inaugural corporate sustainability report, establishing a foundation for more comprehensive ESG measurement, risk management, and reporting as the business grows.
For a very significant number of our shareholders, this is and was a critical catalyst to increasing allocation sizes, and we are very proud to have reached this important milestone. We are already working on our 2026 report, which we expect to publish in the first half of 2027. Together, these developments support our ambition to become one of North America's leading silver producers and a strategic supplier of critical minerals. With that, I will turn the call back over to Paul.
Thanks, Oliver. Again, I am just going to say something that I said a little earlier. Q3 was a record for our company. In fact, it was the strongest production quarter in a 25+ year history of the company. For that, I am extremely proud of what our teams have accomplished, given the laser-like focus we have on safety. You can see how safety and production correlate together. It is very obvious. We have gone a year and a half at both sites without a lost-time accident, and we are breaking record after record. We have delivered strong revenue growth, production sales, and continued investing in the infrastructure that will support the next stage of our business. Cosalá continues to demonstrate why it is such an important asset for our company.
One of the most important requirements for turning around large-capacity operations, like we are doing at Galena, is supporting cash flows from other assets and having options. Some of you will remember, at Karora, we had Spargos Reward fueling the investments we were making into Beta Hunt and to Higginsville in those early years. Here at Americas Gold and Silver, our significant capital deployments, operational improvements at Galena are fueled and helped by the cash flow generations from Cosalá in these early years as we continue to turn it around. On top of that, our world-class exploration results at both Cosalá and the Galena Complex reinforce the scale of the opportunity at each operation.
As we look to finish a strong 2026 and end with our guidance, our priorities remain absolutely crystal clear: keep our people safe, execute the important work required to facilitate sustainable higher production levels at all operations. Looking beyond this year, the long-term case for our metals continues to strengthen. Silver and antimony are increasingly important to advanced manufacturing, electrification, AI infrastructure, and national security. With high-grade operations at Cosalá and Galena, and our antimony joint venture with US Antimony, we believe Americas Gold and Silver is well-positioned to contribute meaningfully to those supply chains. Just want to take a moment, thank each and every one of you for your interest in Americas Gold and Silver, and we look forward to a couple of questions at the moment. Jordan?
As a reminder, if you'd like to ask a question during this time, simply press star followed by the number one on your telephone keypad. We'll take a brief moment to compile the Q&A roster. Your first question comes from the line of Alexander Mowbray from BMO Capital Markets. Your line is live.
Hi, Paul and team. Thanks for taking my question. I have two. The first one is, you've been working to address several longstanding bottlenecks at Galena. Which improvements have made biggest differences so far, and what changes are your teams seeing underground?
Yeah, Alex, a very good question, actually. It's a great one to start off with. Look, I think recently here, just before Beaver Creek and BMO, many of the analysts got to see it with their own eyes. I think you got to see a number of things we're doing. I mentioned one a little earlier today, like new communication systems. You don't usually get credit for something like that, but it costs you $3 million. Our mine had nothing. Having the ability for a supervisor to be accounted on or available 100% of the time instead of 50% of the time matters. Those things matter. The muck flow movement, this is a big one. You think about, well, this mine's been around for 100 years. It's always been handheld jacklegs. Think about the size of fragmentation that produces.
It might be the size of your fist or maybe a big piece the size of somebody's head. When you're drilling and blasting in long-holes, you're going to get bigger rock, and our system wasn't set up to accommodate that. We didn't have grizzlies in place. Evan and the team have quickly put in grizzlies into place. They put in rock breakers. There were pictures here two years ago, Alex, of people on grizzlies at the loading pocket with hammers, double jackhammers. You're like, "Oh my God, how old is this?" We've upgraded our rail system, bigger cars, added grizzlies. Obviously, it goes without saying, changing the mine method is the biggest one, but it does have consequences. It does have cheaper cost, quicker turnaround, different fragmentation. The mine was never set up for that.
Putting in all these things like the grizzlies updates, the ore cars, the leaky feeder. Obviously, without doubt, the shaft upgrades have been amazing that Evan and the team have done. We have gone from 40 tons per hour to over 100 tons per hour. There are so many of these things, and again, I am repeating myself, but it was great to have the analysts come and see. When you get to walk into an old mine and you see there is a brand new skip or a brand new cage, you can see the dollars we have spent, or a brand new rock breaker. You are like, "Okay, this is going." All these things are not. We are not doing that to have an outstanding quarter. We are doing that to build infrastructure that will be here for 20+ years, that will last a long time.
I mentioned a whole bunch of them here, Alex. They are all very equally important, and each bottleneck has to be overcome in order for us to achieve these new levels and new heights, and sustain them. Again, I know I am repeating myself, but sustaining them and making sure we do them quarter after quarter is what matters. It needs to become boring. You need to say, "You are going to get to a certain level, and this thing is going to become. You are going to do it time and time again. You are going to be very consistent," just like we did at Klondex, just like we did at Karora, and it has got to be that way. Hopefully, the whole bunch of them. I know it was a long answer, Alex, but there was like five of them that I gave you.
No, thank you for that. My second question is more of a follow-up on that. With the shaft improvements completed and additional infrastructure advancing, what are the next milestones needed to translate the investment into higher, more consistent production?
Yeah, one of the big ones, again, I think people like to see with their own eyes. There are two of them that are still outstanding. The new paste plant, and our team on site are doing an amazing job managing the contractor and getting that done. We are the only mine in the district that does not have a modernized paste plant. We need that. We know we are going to. We are hoping to start it in Q1. It will likely be built the end of the quarter. We are going to see how the weather is. When we start this thing up, this is going to be something, again, it is going to last forever. This is a perfect example where we did not think about a short quarter.
We thought about, "Hey, if we added a couple extra if we spent more money today and we look into the future, we could increase tails capacity by over 10 years by spending money today." That is the type of approaches we are doing on every project we do. So, for the paste plant, not only will it allow us to fill faster, have a better, more homogeneous compressive strength, something much more reliable like everyone else does, but we are now being able to extend our tails dam life because we are putting in a dry stack at the back end of this. These are the types of decisions that you take today that they do not have an impact in a week or two weeks, but they will have an impact forever for sustaining the biggest production that has ever come out of these mines in history.
The second one, Alex, is really, we have been squarely focused here now that Evan and the team have been pushing pretty hard at getting waste footage and ore footage up, at moving waste development. We have suffered from not having enough waste development in front of ourselves. We need to get waste development in front of ourselves. So, those two things, the paste plant and waste development, are very key and critical to us making sure the rest of the things fall in line together.
Your next question comes from the line of Cole McGill from Stifel. Your line is live.
Hey, guys. Paul, Warren, Oliver, thanks for taking my question, and good morning. Thanks for walking through some of the material handling advancements you have had over the year. Can you provide a bit of color on the mining fronts, and specifically the transitional long-hole, what dilution and over-breakage is like, and tracking versus where you thought you would be at this point?
Yeah, look, that's a great question, Cole, and here's what we're doing. Not unlike any other mine anywhere in the world that has long-hole, what we're identifying is different domains, geological domains. What I mean by that is, we will have long-hole at this mine, call it 75%-80% of it. It will never be 100%. We always knew that. However, we will mine that long-hole very narrow, but we will mine it maybe differently. What I mean by that is, we might be drilling a 2.25-in hole in one area. In another hole, in another area domain, we might be drilling a 3-in hole. The spacing might be different. The way we blast the footwall or the hanging wall might be different.
We might be putting in cable bolts on the hanging wall in some areas, and we might not do it in other areas. As you bring in long-hole into a new mine, just like we did at Let me just be very clear. We did this at Klondex, we did this at Fire Creek, we did this in Hollister, we did this in Beta Hunt. This is not new. This is something we have done time and time again, and I've learned this from doing it in Red Lake, in Timmins, Ontario, and Renabie. This is not something that is new. What we need to do is identify the different geology, the different matrix, and how you drill and blast long-hole so that you do exactly what you said. You make sure you prevent any dilution.
We've got stopes here that we've taken out in some areas where there's no cable bolt. We're drilling a normal pattern like I had at Klondex or Fire Creek, and we are seeing no additional dilution at all. Nothing at all. There's going to be, I suspect, two to three different domains that we're going to identify, but that's going to come with the more stopes we mine. We'll say, all we're doing is we're changing the way we drill or blast or muck or backfill in those areas. Sometimes we'll use conventional fill, sometimes we'll use the new paste fill plant. The modernization of long-hole has been so overwhelmingly successful, it's actually blown my mind how we see some of the stopes. We've got pictures in our slide deck.
If you just look at our slide deck, you can see a top cut, you can see a bottom cut. You can see how narrow, 1.1 m, 1.2 m wide. We have visitors from all over the U.S., mining companies from all over the U.S. asking us, "Can we come and see what you guys are doing?" Of course, we're going to help others. Why wouldn't we? It's in our best interest to always help neighbors or people in our mining industry. They're seeing the pictures in the slide deck, analysts are seeing it underground, our miners are seeing it, and we're able to take a stope that would have taken us 12 months to drill and blast with trackless, we're able to do it in less than 30 days. It's cheaper, it's more efficient. What we need to do is understand the different domains.
That doesn't come in two months. That happens over time. It took me about four years to do it at Klondex, but we're not seeing additional dilution. What we're actually seeing is the dilution is flat. We're not getting any additional dilution. Just look at the pictures. But all I'm saying is that in the different areas of the mine, as we continue to mine long-hole, we will just continue to refine it and get better. If there's an area of the mine that the vein is 70 degrees, Cole, you might want to put cable bolts in the hanging wall, and those are yet to be identified.
So, it's fluid, it's a work in progress, and we will continue to adopt and move very, very quickly as we look at our top cuts, our bottom cuts, and another example is the strike length of the stope or the length of your hole. Sometimes you might go to a 12-m hole where, in Australia, I was able to push to an 18- 20 m hole. So, all those things matter by domain, and then we're learning that as we continue to adopt long-hole at Galena, which has been, again, overwhelmingly successful. I know it was a long-winded answer, but it's not a simple answer, Cole, because there's a lot of moving parts, and it is fluid.
Yeah. No, 100%. Thanks for that, Paul. One more from me, if I may. Can you kind of provide a bit of color just-
My apologies, they've dropped. I'll place them right back in. Just trying to find Cole and those two. Just one moment. Cole, your line is live.
Thanks, operator. Thanks, Paul, for the follow-up there. Just one more from me, if I may. Can you kind of walk us through how the progress with some of the development towards some of the higher-grade silver-copper ores transitioning, and when we could start to see some of that hit the mill into 2027?
Yeah. Look, again, Cole, another great question. Look, here's how I'm going to answer that. I'm going to say something that some of you got to see, and we said it at the site visit. I've been personally mining, many of you have followed me for over 15 years, and thank you for that, but I've been in mining 39 years. When I consider mining as a whole, when I look at new discoveries, let me use one, a great example for you, Cole. A little over a year ago, we discovered the 034 Vein. It was a brand-new discovery at Galena. Just to reiterate, we've had six new discoveries. Six. We had a brand-new discovery. Brand new. You think about announcing a new discovery anywhere in the world, whether it's in the U.S., whether it's in Canada, whether it's in Mexico, South Africa, pick a place, Australia.
You have a new discovery. How long does it typically take a company to get into that new area? We had a brand-new discovery about 18 months ago. We followed up with around 15- 25 holes. We followed up with a drift into it. When the analysts were here about a month ago, we actually took the first cut out of that 034 Vein. In less than 16 months, we went from a brand-new discovery. It wasn't even in our model yet. That's how quick we've been able to adopt and move so fast because of the existing infrastructure, because of everything that's already in place. We've got billions of dollars of infrastructure in place here. We get to drill it in a shorter hole. We get to drill it from underground. But more important, this is fully permitted, ready to go.
We get to access it quickly, to your question. So, we have known cases of areas that we have discovered about a year ago that we're already mining in. So, for us, as we look into the future and we look into the six new discoveries, all we're doing is looking at shedding off maybe some of the lower grade and replacing it with some of the higher grade that we've already discovered. But think back in your own lifetime, Cole, or anybody's, like from a discovery to the time they're mining. Man, I can tell you cases where it's five, 10, 15 years, a new discovery, 10 years later, they're mining it. We're talking months away here. That's unbelievable, because of the existing infrastructure we have. We walked into a mine that has been around for 100 years. It wasn't modernized. It was starved for capital.
But all that 100 years still helps us as shareholders. Look, Cole, I am one of the largest shareholders of the company. I have never felt better about what we are doing, ever. When I see the records, when I see the future, when I look into it, I tell my wife and eight kids, I say, "Listen, we have a tremendous opportunity in front of ourselves. This was never a 100-m dash. This was always a marathon. By God, stick to the plan, because we are going to win this marathon.
Your next question comes from the line of Ken Ilodibe from SCP. Your line is live.
Hi, Paul. We are in [inaudible] team. Maybe you will just start from Cosalá. You guys had a very good quarter there. I was just curious how much of that came from EC120 grade, and basically how the ore body is reconciling to the model as you are heading to 2027?
Hey, Ken. Look, thank you very much for the question. As we continue, I am just going to repeat something I said a little earlier, because I think it is very, very worthwhile mentioning, especially some people listening to the call afterwards and they listen in on the Q&A. It is worth mentioning that when we look at Cosalá as a whole, in the first 10 months of the year, Ken, we have already beat last year's record. 2025, Ken, it was a record for this company. The company had never achieved in Mexico what we did in 2025. In the first 10 months, we have already beat that record. We still have two more months to go. You look at our cash cost dropping from about $25 cash cost to about $14.50 cash cost. Why? Because of the copper byproduct credits. Where is it coming from?
To your point, it is coming from EC120. We are finally into an area. We have been talking about it for a year since I have been here. I have been here, call it 18 months now. We are going a little over 18 months. We have been excited to get into this area. What is extremely exciting is what you asked the question about the reconciliation. Well, it is reconciling a lot higher than the model. Well, why? Well, it is simple. The model had about 100 g per ton. We are seeing areas that we are intercepting that are anywhere from four or five times that. So I cannot wait to see the next revision of this resource update. It is going to be very exciting because we did not have these drill holes.
Look on that slide seven. You wrap around that, there is about 10 drill holes, all of them grades of Galena. And this is where we are in.
We are mining into those things. So, as we finish the year, we know it is going to be a record for the company at Cosalá. We are setting ourselves up for 2027 to continue this strong growth and the performance that we have seen from Cosalá. So, hard not to be excited, and I know I am repeating myself, but I am a very large shareholder, and I could not be more excited about what the future is going to deliver for us and other shareholders.
Okay, yeah. Thanks for that. That was good. Maybe just switching gears a little bit to Galena. I was kind of reading the MD&A, and I saw OpEx per ton was higher than last quarter, right? There was a little bit of commentary in there about September development push, and I was just wondering how much of this increase is sort of one-off from this development push versus structural, and how much are you looking to see costs reduce into Q4?
Yeah, look, we have been very focused at both of our operations, Cosalá and Galena. Galena, if I have not said it once, I have said it a thousand times, Galena has been starved for capital for three decades. You got a 100-year-old mine that we are trying to modernize. We believe in the guidance numbers we have set out. We expected us to be on the higher end of the guidance, but we still know that it is a very achievable number. But there is no doubt we have to finish the capital projects, and we have been fairly focused since the shaft upgrades have been done, and we have been breaking records on waste development, ore development.
We have only been breaking those records, by the way, and we are talking anywhere from 25%-35% increase in some of these footages because of the de-bottlenecking of the shaft and putting in the grizzlies and other things.
We have to finish all these projects that we have in front of us, and I have talked a bit about how many more we have in front of us. Certainly, Galena, we know the costs were a little slightly higher than we had intended, but we are not doing something that we want to do as a flash in the pan. I think the best way for me to repeat something, Ken, is to talk about the paste plant. The paste plant was originally designed to just be [inaudible, but we are now extending the tails mine, the life of the tails dam by 8-10 years. There is no real estate in Idaho. Go find a flat piece of land in Idaho. You are surrounded by mountains or, a better thing, surrounded by mines. Throw a dart on a 20-mi long section in Idaho.
There are 15 mines lined up in a row, but there is no flat land. For us, why do we see an increase in cost? We know some of it is these capital projects, some of these projects that we are doing that will sustain the longer-term production.
That concludes our question and answer session. I will now turn it back over to Paul Huet for closing remarks.
Jordan, look, I just want to take a moment and thank all the analysts, all our shareholders. Look, we see the market. We all see it. We feel it. Nobody feels it more than the team on the ground. I cannot express the gratitude I have for both of our operating teams at Galena, in Mexico. In closing, I am going to say, as one of the largest shareholders of Americas Gold and Silver, I have never been more excited about what we have in front of us and the future for this company. Thank you to each and every one of you for joining us here today. Have a blessed day. All the best.
That concludes today's meeting. You may now disconnect.