Say good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, depending on where in the world you're logging in from. I'm joined today by Contango Silver & Gold CFO, Mike Clark, and VP Exploration, Dave Larimer, to discuss this morning's release. Gentlemen, how are you today?
Great. Thanks for having us, Romeo.
Yep. More and more and doing well.
Awesome. The company's CEO, Director of Communications, and President are on a whirlwind marketing tour, seemingly, I think, a different city every day, everyone have gathered from Miami to Atlanta to Belgrade, and Budapest today. That means we're lucky enough to get to talk to Dave and Mike unplugged and unsupervised, so I'm excited. I know there's quite a few of you in the room, so I'm looking forward to today's event. Here's how today's gonna work. It is an interactive event, so I've got some questions for both executives based on this morning's news release. This is interactive, so there's a chat button at the bottom of the screen. Please feel free to enter questions at any point during today's event.
That being said, I'm gonna try to keep it pretty tight and on topic today. If you have questions, still feel free to put them in. I'll make sure they get to the Contango Silver & Gold team. Just don't be too disappointed if I don't get to them just 'cause we're trying to keep it pretty on topic for today's event. The other thing I'll say is today's event is being recorded. It will be available for replay probably around 4:00 P.M. Eastern, so not long after today's event ends. It'll come right into this same link, you can feel free to share it. It'll also be on [6ix's] YouTube page. Okay, let me get straight into the geology.
Mike, if you don't mind, I'm going to start with Dave, straight off the bat, 'cause I know the stats from this morning, loaded with high-grade hits. I saw 74 grams per ton over half a meter on the CK, 55 grams per ton on the L1C, 31 grams from another L1C interval. These come on top of the 60 grams per ton over 5.92 meters you announced back in March. Obviously, you're doing a lot of work. As you stitch these new stations together along the west drift of Lucky Shot, what's the read on how the system is actually behaving underground?
Well, definitely let's start with geology. This is the fun stuff. Yeah, thanks for starting with me first. I think overall for this, you know, we're not dealing with random high-grade numbers. You know, these are starting to pretty repeatable hits across multiple structures that really does show the structural controlled system, you know. Now we're starting to develop the continuity, the complexity, and it also shows us the room to grow just in the Lucky Shot, you know, as it sells. You know, we're seeing these repeated high-grade mineralization across our multiple structures from our previous press release, you know, into this one, and it shows that this is a structurally controlled, what I call a high-grade vein array.
We're not dealing with just a single kind of vein, we're dealing with an array, kind of a swarm of veins, how they structurally kind of pull through the system there. This is very good. I mean, this is very good for us. You know, this is an emerging picture. We'll start to develop the continuity as we start to understand the structural complexity. We'll probably talk a lot about structure today, what this gives us is multiple opportunities to concentrate that high-grade gold. You know, having that west drift and being able to drill this first program through the west drift has been a huge value add for us.
You know, it helps turn these strong assays into a more kind of coherent geological model that we're gonna start to force-feed into our resource assessment when we're completely drilled.
Yeah, awesome. Well, appreciate that. It's certainly an exciting update, and I will get back to you in a second. I do want to just touch on the finance part, the math stuff for Mike. If you don't mind, I'm going to talk about the acquisition for a bit, because I know it's $16 million total, mix of upfront cash, around $4 million due at closing by July 1st, and $10 million promissory note carrying 5% interest. How did you come to that structure with Alaska Hardrock, Mike?
Yeah. No, it's kind of two buckets is how I think about it. You kind of got the real property, the equipment, the buildings. That value is approximately $6 million, and that's what we're paying cash for this year. The other value is on the 2% NSR. We structured that with the promissory note, and we ascribed a value of about $10 million to that. That promissory note is kind of, it's set up in a way that we think we can get that mine, the Lucky Shot, into production by 2028, and we can use profits from the mine to basically fund those principal repayments.
Thanks. I know a big part of this, obviously, extinguishing that 2% NSR, I think should be one of the big headlines for a lot of the investors listening. With gold trading around $4,560-$4,600 an ounce right now, can you give us a sense of what removing that royalty actually does for Lucky Shot's economics, both on a kind of per ounce basis, but also the life of the whole project?
Yeah, I guess I'll caution listeners that, you know, we still are working on feasibility studies, so what we use are basically internal estimates. You know, when we approached this, we looked at a number, to value the NSR, we had to look at a number of sensitivities, gold price, you know, discount rates, you know, what do you think annual production will be, you know, the life of mine. When you know, if you just take a simple approach and assume $4,000 gold and our production target of 40,000-50,000 oz a year, we think this NSR should have a value of $3 million-$4 million a year coming back to us as value.
You know, if you know, on a five-year mine life, that should have a value, undiscounted value of $50 million-$20 million. If you double the mine life to 10 years, you know, that number doubles. You know, then just looking at it on a per ounce basis, it's about $80 per oz. You know, if we get this to where we expect, which, you know, we think all-in sustaining cost should be, you know, $2,000 or less, you know, it's a meaningful reduction in our all-in sustaining cost. That's kind of how we approach it and we think what the impacts will be.
Awesome. No, appreciate it. Always helpful to go through the math, even if it is from engineering last month at this point. Dave, I do wanna get back into, as you correctly guessed, we're gonna talk about the structures today, so good call. You've added two structures to the model that weren't there before, the L1E vein and the newly designated CK vein. Just for investors in the room who aren't geologists, who I know is a number of us, including myself, how big a deal is it to identify these things mid-program, and how are they factoring into the resource update that you're targeting right now?
Well, it's definitely, you know, hugely important that we identify this mid-program. You know, the L1E and the CK veins, they matter because they make the model more complete. You know, this, where the data supports them, you know, we can kind of feed into the resource update, then, you know, where we have holes, you know, those become our priority targets. You know, as we're going through this mid-program, our initial model for the L2 showed there was a little hole, and it was undulating through here. This program was specifically designed to step through these drill stations, to fill this out, to round out our models. That was exactly what we did kind of mid-program. While we're getting these intercepts, you know, we're doing the detailed logging, we're also doing the detailed structural logging as well.
We can start to see the orientations of these veins. These new veins, you know, they expand this structural framework. While I talk complexity, that complexity is good. You know, it really shows us that, hey, we're dealing with a system that really was able to pump a lot of fluids through the system and a lot of gold through the system. By identifying this and piecing it together, we're starting to develop that not only do we have a primary structure of that L2, but we also get these relay systems, these ramps, these splays that are coming off that are identified. What we identified now is the L1E and the CK, and those tie in, you know, to the L1D, the L1DE, and even the KM vein that we previously talked about.
For the resource update, this will be important 'cause this is gonna incorporate all this data into this continuity and this better understanding of the geology and ultimately the confidence, you know, that we have in our models, which is why we're doing this program. We're doing this to de-risk this program, so we can optimize what is there in our resource estimate. We're still taking a very, very disciplined approach. The very disciplined message is that, hey, we're improving these models. You know, we don't force unsupported, you know, structures or anything like that. These are all very, very deliberate, you know, geology-based decisions when we link these things together through the system.
No, appreciate that. I know the intersecting fault is a brand-new feature, I think, for the market. If you could just blaze around that and walk us through what it is, why it matters for how investors should think about the deposit. As a second question, what's still on the to figure out list there?
Absolutely. The intersecting fault was an interesting one for us. You know, it's another piece of that structural architecture. It does help us explain where these high-grade veins and these splays are at and kinda where they displace on the mine scale. When you look at the geology, especially at the large picture scale, we've shown in many of our sections that the Lucky Shot system is displaced. You have the Coleman, steps down to the Lucky Shot, steps down again. Those are the large major kind of district level faults that are controlling our mineralization. Now we're getting down and refining this down to another level of resolution where we're taking these blocks, the Lucky Shot fault system and that block, now we can see the offset.
The intersecting fault in that's another offset. One of the best ways to look at this, when I look back, we look at our original model of the L2. You know, we're connecting up, intercepts in three-dimensional space. We see how it was fit through the continuity, and the vein rolls and she'll undulate through there. There's a couple areas that do have some complexities where she really rolls over, and it's like, okay, does the vein really roll, or is there something more coming through there? While we're able to get this drilling through the system, we're able to model up this fault, the intersecting fault. We can see that, yep, this is a post-mineralization fault that's doing a similar thing between the Coleman and Lucky Shot, but just on a smaller scale.
As these stress kind of relieves themselves through 70 million years of the rock sitting there, she'll displace and she'll settle down. What this gives us is a better understanding of, the L2 and the vein system's not undulating, but she's really coming over, hitting a fault, offsetting down, and then rolling across. You know, for the investors, the key point is, hey, this deposit is structurally dynamic. You know, it's not a simple flat vein system, and that's good. Helping us get this understanding now is just feeding forward into our geologic models and eventually into our mining cycle. Knowing how this vein behaves will let us put those development or excuse me, put those stopes in there accurately, so we can stay on the ore, you know, and mine gold and not waste rock.
This is very, very common in many deposits as we gain this resolution of what our deposit's doing. I like to equate this back to when I was working at Pogo. You know, after 10 years of there, we were still finding fault systems and fault blocks. They're just offsetting just slightly through programs. It's definitely key that we're finding this now and doing this understanding now, so we have the best, most accurate models going forward. I think some of the fun part when I look at this, without getting too forward-looking is, as we understand how these things offset, we can also truncate in the rest of the drilling and rest of those discoveries and the splays of what they're doing further out and further down.
It's also opening up future exploration targets for us underground to optimize our models going forward.
Great. Appreciate it. There's one question from the chat actually that I'll throw in that speaks to this kind of vein exploration you're doing now. Mooserode asks, he says, the narrow vein, high grade, but that sometimes also means high dev cost. He wants to know how much you're anticipating Contango can produce from Lucky Shot on an annual basis. Right now estimates. Obviously we're not at the formal stage yet.
Well, the guidance, you know, to me has remained the same. We're still looking to kind of prove up a resource, 400,000, 500,000 oz through this program. You know, with the intent of, and the guidance of, hey, we wanna produce this at a 40,000-50,000 oz a year, and to be able to kind of pull this out. Again, I'd like to caveat, this is just the start. You know?
Sure.
If we look at the Lucky Shot system with Coleman, this is just the known extents of the deposit that we know now. As we gain that geologic experience, we wanna expand this down dip, down depth, and pulling it across laterally. This is the initial kind of district play of really understanding the district, you know, that opens it up.
Sure.
You can definitely feed forward from there and, you know, sponge out from there. This is, to me, this is just the start of the district. It really needs this geological understanding that we can pull together to be able to mine this.
Hey, exciting. I'm actually, my next question is gonna ask you to look into the future a little bit. 'Cause I know you're about to kick off, roughly 800 m of underground development with GMS starting midday, as I understand it.
Yeah.
What does that, just for folks in the room who are putting together a timeline, what does that unlock for the next round of drilling? How does this work bridge into that feasibility study coming in H1 of next year?
To me, this underground exploration development, this is more than just access. You know, I'm gonna get a little excited here probably talking about it, this is really a data-generating platform here. You know, this allows us, you know, more drilling, further drilling, ultimately what it does is gives us stronger feasibility inputs when we do our feasibility study. When we look at 800 m of development, you know, this is key because it's gonna help us unlock, you know, the geometry, the continuity, the structural complexity that I talked about. What it does is it reinforces what we showed, is that this underground drilling and underground drilling stations are the preferred method for this. You know, it gives us shorter drill holes.
We have better control, better orientation of where these holes go and what they're specifically targeting. It ultimately lets us model things in, like these higher vein densities of the L1E or the CK vein or the KM vein, also gives us that understanding of that post-mineralization faulting. All this is tying together into our drilling story here that's going to improve our confidence, you know, in our vein continuity, in the grade distribution, and in the structural interpretation eventually. Additionally, you know, what we're really excited about of this is, this underground exploration development is not only for drill platforms, as we've seen in the past, you know, this generates more areas that we can do critical mapping underground.
You know, it just gives us another platform to gain our geologic data we need, the structures, you know, additional sampling, you know, understanding technical data. It's all gonna feed forward into this plan. I caveat this by saying, if you look at what we did in the west drift, just one west drift, you know, from there, hey, we kind of discovered the KM vein. It didn't make sense until we drilled it, yeah, we understood that there was another structure that was gold-bearing in here. Additionally, as we came back, we knew the CK vein was there kind of in two dimensions, it wasn't until we drilled it, we pulled that continuity out from that. It all started with this access, you know, that I really truly call our geologic data-driven platforms underground.
Oh, cool. Let's roll up to the follow-up question from the chat, before I get back to the Money Mike, if you don't mind one more geo question.
Sure.
What are the resource grade upgrade and recovery via ore sorting so far at Lucky Shot?
All that's to be studied right now. Right now, the step is getting there, drill it. You know, like I said, I wanna focus on the continuity, excuse me, the structural complexity to give us that best picture when we go into the study. We don't wanna front load the study with any, you know, preconceived notions yet. Right now this is a data-driven thing. We wanna, you know, view the resource because at the end of the day, that is our biggest risk mitigation of the program, is being able to do this understanding with the best, most highly accurate models we got going forward. Without totally sidestepping the question, our focus right now is on the geology.
No, I think that's, I think that's a fair note. Mike, I will get back to the cash for a couple seconds here as we close out you. I know closing this acquisition carries about that $4 million cash we talked about earlier, the $10 million notes has a principal payment starting on the second anniversary. How is Contango currently planning to fund this?
Yeah, we have, well, we have plenty of cash on hand right now to fund that $6 million, you know.
Sure.
$0.7 million today and the $300,000 we already paid, along with the $4 million in July, we have plenty of cash to pay that. You know, to my earlier point, the promissory note has been structured in a way that we think we can get Lucky Shot into production and be funding those repayments with production.
Okay, great. I know Rick called it in the, Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse, our CEO of the company, in the press release called it a rare and exciting milestone to consolidate both surface and subsurface royalties at once. But while I'm here, face to face with you from your seat as CFO, why was this the right window, just for investors watching, to get this deal done? How unusual is this kind of consolidation in the junior gold space?
Yeah. Yeah. I felt it was the right window for a few reasons. You know, we're extremely encouraged with the drilling success we've had at Lucky Shot. You know, we remain confident that this will be our next operating mine to go in production. You got that. We are bullish on the gold price. You know, we have a healthy balance sheet that can, you know, afford to this upfront cash payments. We were fortunate to have the underlying landowner who was willing to sell on reasonable terms on a structure that kind of worked with what we're trying to achieve here. From my perspective, you know, this made economic sense, and it allows us to kind of unlock the upside or lock in the upside of the NSR.
You know, and it is a, you know, it's more unusual to have the opportunity to buy these things back. When the opportunity came there and we jumped on it.
Great. I have one question for you, Mike, that sounds, I promise, like a set-up question, but I really promise a real investor actually asked this on email. That's where can people buy shares of Contango Silver & Gold?
Well, you can buy them on the NYSE American, or you can buy them on the TSX, both trade under the symbol CTGO.
Great. Thank you. Getting to some of the more esoteric questions from the chat, and feel free, we can move any of these. You know, I can shoot them to the team afterwards.
Okay.
Leslie wanted to know, it came out about 15 minutes ago, so near the beginning of the event. Dave, might be a comment for you. Mike Gibbs, economic, one side too, let us know. Love if you could compare Lucky Shot to Manh Choh, just so investors can understand what's next.
I'll start off, again, coming from a geology perspective. Similarities are gold systems, you know, in Alaska, Tintina gold belt. For at least a background geologic knowledge, we're dealing with similar timeframes, similar large scale geologic processes through there as we understand in interior Alaska. After that, you kind of diverge out into your deposit types. You know, Manh Choh has a different structural system, has a different fluid pumping system. Lucky Shot, very structurally controlled, very, you know, time-wise, and it's a higher grade thinner skinned, you know, fight. Our fight's a little different in the exploration in where it's gonna be very drilling intensive and underground focused because it is deeper. After that, everything else is gonna be tied down in the geology.
Your metallurgy and how things pull together geochemically, totally different systems. From a geologic standpoint, it's something that is definitely in our wheelhouse, and we're extremely, you know, from Manh Choh to Lucky Shot. You know, we study these systems very well, and we know the critical things that make them tick, and those are the critical things that we're looking for for resource expansion.
Great. No, I appreciate the details there. Mike, I don't know if you have any additional comments there.
You know, high level, you know, we average 60,000 oz of production out of Manh Choh a year. You know, we own, you know, 30% of that. We get that 60,000. With Lucky Shot, we own 100%, but we target we're gonna get 40,000-50,000 oz a year, so, and it we anticipate it'll have a longer mine life as well.
Great. now there's two questions that sort of go together, so I'll ask them kinda one after another. What order did Contango's current project portfolio go into production? What's basically the order of operations for which projects are up to bat next?
Would you like me to take that?
I'll start from a geologic point of view, Lucky Shot is more advanced, you know. You know, obviously Manh Choh is in production right now. Lucky Shot is at a more advanced stage with respect to Johnson Tract and our Kitsault projects. Just from a geology aspect, you can kind of see the flow through there. The Lucky Shot is the more advanced project right now and has a shorter timeline to that production decision. Johnson Tract, you know, not far behind it. Got a great resource. You know, the IA was published out. Right now, our short-term thing is construction. Get into the portal to get underground in the next two years, so we can do that next level of drilling.
We can do the very similar stuff that we're doing to Lucky Shot that we're doing.
Awesome. The other question that dovetails in, and Mike, I can throw this to you first, you can jump in there, is does Lucky Shot production dovetail with Manh Choh depletion?
Yes, it does. You know, I think, you know, right now we kind of target Manh Choh kind of going out to 2029, 2030. You know, Lucky Shot, we're working towards an objective of getting that in production in 2028. You know, to Dave's point, you know, Johnson Tract is about two years behind Lucky Shot. You know, Lucky Shot, fully permitted, ready to go into production. You know, Johnson Tract is anticipating that next permit in 2028. You know, you kind of have Manh Choh kind of winding down potentially, you know, near the end of 2029 or 2030. Then you kind of have Lucky Shot coming on and then Johnson Tract two years behind it. They should all kind of replace that.
I mean, Kitsault Valley, there's still a bit of work to do, but ideally, you know, we're working towards all three of those, you know, moving forward.
Okay, great. Dave, there's one question from Writer P. Epstein. Thanks for joining us. He wants to know what would have to happen to reach a million ounces at Lucky Shot. If 1 million is possible, how many years do you reckon it would take to get there?
That's definitely a fair question. You know, without being too forward, you know, leaning in a forward-looking statement. Do I think as a geologist potential is there in the district? Absolutely. What it's gonna take to get us there is what we're doing now, and it's that disciplined approach. You know, we wanna start with what we know, and you're basically growing that seed. You know, we're gonna start off, you know, grow the Lucky Shot, you know, Coleman systems, understand that. We do have the rest of, a strong position in the rest of the district. Our geologists, our senior geologists, you know, in our copious free time, mostly on Sundays when we can't sleep, we sit down and we try to figure out what's the rest of that district. What have we learned this week, and how can we apply that forward?
You know, it's just all about adding those ounces up in the resource as we step out through that disciplined approach across the district through there. It'll take a little time. Is it doable? Yes. We wanna stay disciplined in what we're doing. We just don't wanna go out there and, you know, we love the fun helicopter stuff way out in the woods, but again, it comes down to maintaining our approach and driving value to the company, you know, with just one program at a time.
Great. There's a complex geo question that I'm gonna leave to the end. I'll do that first. I can get into the other first. Charles from the chat asks, "When will the definitive feasibility study likely be completed for Lucky Shot?
Right now with our schedule, with our underground development, that next phase of surface and underground drilling, we're looking about H1 in 2027 to have that feasibility. That's our target to get that all completed in.
Great. Peter, to follow up on your last question, just said, it's good you don't need a lucky break to get beyond 400, 500 oz. It's a reasonable expectation subject to more time investment, drilling, et cetera. One question, I feel crazy asking a DSO question without Rick here because I don't think I've ever asked a DSO question on a Contango event without Rick in the room. Someone wants to know if you can touch on the pros and cons of using DSO for Lucky Shot. First, is Lucky Shot planning to be a DSO operation like Manh Choh, and then why is really what they want.
I can start on this one. We definitely plan for Lucky Shot to be DSO. You know, to meet the criteria for DSO, you know, you gotta be near infrastructure. That infrastructure can be road, rail, or water. You know, with Manh Choh, you're on the highway. With Lucky Shot, you're right next to the highway, but you're also next to the rail. We intend to use the rail, whether it goes north or south. We'll decide that over the next year here. We will use the rail, and it is a cheaper form of transportation than the road. Obviously, water is the cheapest form of DSO transportation, which is what you'll see for Johnson Tract and Kitsault Valley.
Awesome.
I'll also throw in there, Lucky Shot geologically, you know, very, very supportive of that DSO model. It is what we consider, you know, a very clean ore. It's quartz vein with gold. There's not a lot of sulfides. There are some sulfides there, but there are not a lot of sulfides, and you don't have a lot of bad other elements or bad players in there. To a certain degree, it's a very clean ore. It would blend very well in many, many operations that fits that DSO model.
Great. It's a great stand-in for Rick. I feel like Rick's in the room with us talking about DSO. I love that. One person wants to know, is there any potential extension of Manh Choh gold ounces? Is there any exploration work being done to expand Manh Choh's current ounces?
Yeah. We're linked in with, you know, through the Peak Gold side and that, and the exploration continues on. There's always potential to find more stuff, especially as you start getting down to the bottom of the pits. You know, to me, the big thing is, hey, we want to optimize short range and then look in kind of that middle range in the long term, and those programs are ongoing now.
Great. Okay, Dave, I got some geo-nerd questions for you here.
Let's do it.
We'll get into the good stuff. Somebody's interested in the mining aspect and the types of machines you're implementing to get there physically. He wants to know, one, are there practice systems set in place for breakdowns?
For breakdowns with respect to mine equipment or drills?
I believe that's it, yeah, for physical mining equipment.
All that will be kinda tightened in together. You know, when we do look in this from a geology aspect, in a mine geology aspect, you know, the veins do set up well to mine. You know, the geotech is very well. It's very fascinating kind of the side story of this. You go and you look at some of the open structures right now, they've been open for 60, 70 years, they haven't collapsed on themselves. Geotechnically, it's a very strong mine. Mining through it, we'll have to get our final models, where the vein orientations are at on that, you know, with the resource, then we can kinda turn that over to a little better engineering design.
You know, it is narrow vein mining, so obviously, you know, you wanna minimize dilution. You know, smaller headings, smaller stopes are the better. You know, whether or not you do a more conventional jackleg or more conventional small scale, you know, conventional mining are all the options out there. You know, we talked, you know, in our time of, hey, what else can we do? There's slusher stopes that we can do, and how do you make those engineering and mine decisions fit to your geology? That's gonna be the key. How do you optimize your ore coming out while minimizing dilution? All to be seen, it is gonna be rolled into the feasibility study in the next year.
The last part of this question was what consumables are most important to the actual drilling and the removal?
For the drilling, I mean, consumables, I mean, it's always gonna come down to your energy costs first. You know, whether or not your power and your drill's electrical, which seems to be the most efficient with the diesel train to get in through there. Your diesel will be your next biggest ones. Obviously, you got your other consumables in there, your ground support, you know, your split sets or your bolts in there to keep the rock safe and competent in there. It's gonna come down to your explosives generally. You know, what do you need to kind of do your explosives in there? It's all gonna be tied back into those economics. It will be tied into a modern feasibility study with the current costs.
Okay, great. One last one for you from the chat there, Dave . At least while I'm asking it's people's last chance to ask a question. He says, while there's a geo on the call, any chance of other metals besides gold at Lucky Shot? Silver, rare earths, tungsten, antimony, molybdenum, et cetera.
Yeah. We have looked at that in the system and, you know, it's strikingly there are what we call associated elements with them. There are little tellurium, little other little elements, but it's such a small scale right now that nothing really stands out. We do keep our finger on this. All of our assays, not only do we PhotonAssay for gold, but we do a whole complete package on every single assay. We're studying all these elements, and we're seeing if they increase and decrease. It is interesting when you start to get into these, you know, accessory or even, you know, other critical metals that are in there. How do they concentrate, and how do they play geochemically?
We could go on and on, a long dissertation about, you know, the sulfidation states and how these things pull together through there. The key is we're looking at these. 'Cause right now, gold seems to be the most economic. A little silver. Those will fall out a lot of the geomet work that we have planned up in the next year. This truly is one of those high grade, pretty much gold systems.
Yeah, straight gold. Love it. Dave, I always like to end with a bit of a big picture question. For what you're doing for the rest of the year, what are you most excited about at Lucky Shot specifically, just for 2026? Like, what keeps you getting up in the morning all jazzed?
Oh, what gets me jazzed the most is, you know, when I go down there and I, and I see the geos that we have down there, our geo team, you know, when they're excited every morning, and they're just jumping up and down, biting at the bit, you know, where are the drillers? Where's the core? You know, they get that new core out, and they plop it on the table, and we all just kinda get over to the core, and we all kinda go through it. To me, that's the most exciting part, you know. It's almost a race sometimes to say, hey, who can find, you know, visible gold the first? You know, you get out there and you find the gold, you know, that's exciting.
Then you kinda back off and let those core loggers do their work. You know, they're marking up the core, going through, you know, come back and checking on them, and they're excited. You know, they're, hey, hey, check out this structure, you know, and, how does this fit? You start marking up, and you look at all these little angles on the structure and then taking those and putting them into the model. Then you start to see how these things are lining up, you know, in three-dimensional space, and they're all kind of talking to it as a group. That gets me the most excited.
You know, the next one that really gets me excited is, hey, what's that next fresh rock going to look like? You know, you take those next rounds in our exploration underground development, you know, we're going to be right behind them, you know, getting on there, looking at structures, looking at that fresh rock, you know, that it may have never been exposed before, you know. Then just seeing that fresh rock and holding that in your hand is exciting. Of course, the final thing is, you know, tying this together, you know, big picture-wise over our next couple phases of operation in the next year. You know, you kind of have a mental picture of, hey, this is what the models are doing now.
These are kind of our best estimates of what's going on there, tying that picture together, coming back with the drilling and seeing how the model's changed. You're like, oh, man, we were totally wrong there, but yet that totally makes sense. Having that understanding of how these systems come together is that's the passion. That's why you become an economic geologist at the end of the day.
Well,
I get it the next couple months, and in just one project. It's exciting.
That's just summer.
Yeah.
I honestly think that's probably a pretty good note to leave it on. Mike, Dave, thanks so much for letting me grill you and the audience about both today's news, but also looking out a bit broader. I really appreciate both your time. I know there are a lot of you in the room. If you think of the perfect question to ask right after the event, please feel free to message in. I'll make sure the team gets it. There's also a Request Meeting button at the bottom of the screen. This is your last chance to press it before we close for the day. I'll make sure you get connected with the Contango Silver & Gold team. Mike, Dave, thank you so much. This was fun. I appreciate you going through the news with me.
Thanks, Romeo.
Thank you.
Thanks, everyone.