Idaho Strategic Resources CEO John Swallow on Funding Growth Without Dilution

Trevor Hall (0:15)

Idaho Strategic Resources is employing a production-backed expiration model, built small cash generating operations to fund growth. Current revenue comes from its Golden Chest Mine, which produced 12,538 ounces of gold in 2025

Growth tracks are twofold. The first is a rare earth and thorium exploration in Idaho, rare earth elements thorium belt in central Idaho. The second is the Murray Gold Belt in northern Idaho, where the company is targeting 20,000 ounces of annual gold production by 2028 With me is John Swallow. He is president and CEO of Idaho Strategic Resources. John, welcome to Mining Stock Daily.

John Swallow (0:56)

Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for having us on.

Trevor Hall (0:59)

John, you called the Golden Chest Idaho's only hard rock gold mine with a decade of continuous modern production. Can you describe current operations now and what changes to get to that 20,000 ounces?

John Swallow (1:14)

Yeah. So currently, the Golden Chest Mine sits in the Panhandle area of North Idaho. Basically, we control what I call the northern half of the Coeur d'Alene Mining District. The southern half contains Bunker Hill, Sunshine, Heckler's Lucky Friday, America's Golden Silvers Galena Mine. But the Golden Chest sits on about 220 acres and over in the far corner of a 20,000 acre land package that we've consolidated over the last five years. One of the things that we did when we set out to start is we started out with basically a production backed exploration business model. So what that did is that basically started with the hard part. So you got to put a mine into production to build cash flow and revenues and then grow off of there. And what that also does is it helps you greatly reduce dilution. And as the largest single shareholder, that's one of the things that I'm obviously most concerned about. But the Golden Chest, like you said, did about 12,500 ounces last year. We've steadily grown production since 2016

We're going to be advancing into another area of the mine called the Paymaster area this next year, and that's where most of our production will come from. We're currently operating in an area called the H-Vane, and then also a higher grade area called the JumboVane that will be advancing as we go here over the next year or two.

Trevor Hall (2:38)

I think during your July presentation, you were talking about some long-haul stoping, and I assume that some of the zones that you're targeting right now, but that was pending geotechnical tests. Is it everything is fine right now in terms of accessing new parts of the mine?

John Swallow (2:53)

Yeah, what we're doing is we're actually developing over to that Paymaster area, and the long-haul stoping method of mining will be something that we incorporate over in that area. That'll be due to us. Right now, we incorporate it underhand cut and fill mining method in the H vein and in the jumbo.

Trevor Hall (3:12)

Now, gold prices have been rising nicely, but in the recent quarters, you also noted an increase in all in sustaining costs. Sixteen percent increase in a comparable on the Q2, and I believe a 30 percent in a comparable on the Q1, that's 2026 versus 2025

What's driving prices higher?

John Swallow (3:34)

You know, one of the things that you'll see with us is we're going to be spending money on exploration. So part of our business model, basically production back to exploration is, we can add and subtract exploration as we want. But what we've done is we actually incorporate a heck of a lot of exploration out of cashflow. This year, we're going to do somewhere around $8 million worth of exploration that is largely comprised of drilling. So most of what that is, you'll see on there is either drilling at or near the Golden Chest, within the Murray Gold Belt and even down towards our rarest element properties to the south.

Trevor Hall (4:14)

Understood regarding production. Just interested though, because you are an operator and we don't, you know, at Mining Stock Daily, we don't talk to operators nearly enough. But can you just detour and just talk a little bit about cost right now? I mean, it's a red hot sector. Obviously, there's been problems with diesel and also it's hard to get a hold of labor right now.

What is a cost that you're kind of focused on right now?

John Swallow (4:38)

You know, one of the things we get asked the diesel question quite often, to me, it's not a very large part of our cost, to be quite honest with you. One of the benefits you have when you have a mine located in the Silver Valley area of North Idaho is Interstate 90 runs right through the region. You've got five generations of work force nearby. We actually are on an interstate and then a state highway, and the only time you're on a gravel road is when you drive to the portal off of the state highway. So as far as, you know, having high costs or like trucking diesel and that kind of stuff, we don't really have any of that. It's one of sort of one of the competitive advantages you have to our area. My concern, if I'm being honest, was it wasn't really, if diesel prices doubled, it's going to create a hardship for the company. I was actually more concerned that if we to make sure we could even get it. Those are the kinds of things that we look at. So some of the things you do is you just store more diesel on site and that kind of thing. But the diesel costs haven't really hit us that much.