Integra Resources (TSXV:ITR) - 2026 Guidance Intact, 2027 De-Risking Underway

George Salamis (0:00)

My name is George Salamis. I'm president and CEO of Integra Resources, focused on the Western US, 10 million ounces of gold in total between three projects, one project in operation, Florida Canyon, one project in permitting and pre-development, DeLamar, which is the flagship, and Nevada North, not too far behind DeLamar.

SPEAKER_2 (0:21)

Good to see you, sir.

George Salamis (0:22)

Good to see you.

SPEAKER_2 (0:23)

Yes. Right, here we are at Beaver Creek. Obviously, this seems to be the jewel of the event year here. Lots of people here. What are you hoping to get out of it?

George Salamis (0:34)

Just bringing shareholders up the curve on what's going on, giving them the view of this is where we are, this is where we plan to head.

Cash flow is stabilizing from the operation at Florida Canyon. We have a strong treasury, I mean, $13 million US. Even with all of the investments that we are making back into both Florida Canyon and DeLamar, our treasury is still building. We have growth sitting obviously in front of us at Florida Canyon, especially next year.

SPEAKER_2 (1:04)

Cash build up is always good. No dilation for me. Thank you very much. Yes.

This has been, to use your words, a show me story. You said that to me. If you look back in the last 12 months, I think there's been a lot of showing. There's also been a lot of learnings along the way. How do you rank yourself, rate yourself or view the last year?

George Salamis (1:27)

In terms of the first two quarters of the year, there are difficult quarters for us.

Obviously, we were producing not on our quarterly guidance. We were falling short.

Largely speaking, it's due from little things, not big things. The big piece of the puzzle that we needed to solve, which you saw when you came out to the site, was the haulage. How do we get ore out of the open pits? How do we get it to the crusher? How do we drive it straight to the bleach pad? That's all resolved. That was nine tenths of the issue that needed solving. These things that have plagued us of later are little things, which we were resolving quarter over quarter. The quarter coming up, I think, is going to be a very good quarter.

SPEAKER_2 (2:07)

Let's talk about that. It's a big engineering logistics exercise.

It's hauling earth as efficiently as possible down to the crusher and extracting gold. When you talk about these little things, what do you mean by that?

George Salamis (2:20)

Getting into new ore bodies that haven't been mined previously or mining some of that low-grade stockpile material that was previously economic, which is now economic, and getting the blending strategies down right, that's one thing that did plague us in the earlier part of this year. A lot of fine material in that low-grade stockpile, which we had to blend with in situ, and getting the blending recipe down right takes a while.

SPEAKER_2 (2:46)

Right.

George Salamis (2:48)

So in the beginning, we had issues with circulation on the heap leach pad. As a result of that, we're through those issues now. But again, it's chemistry. You have to get the blending down right, and we're there.

SPEAKER_2 (2:59)

Okay. So come back to the money equation. You fall short in the first couple of quarters. Yes. Not by much, but people will judge you on that. Yes, of course. What's the setup? You used a phrase earlier, we're going to set up for the future, we're looking to the future.

What have you done in Q2, which you're going to be able to benefit from?

George Salamis (3:18)

Q2 or Q3, the blending strategy is the big piece.

SPEAKER_2 (3:23)

Right. Okay.

George Salamis (3:24)

And then, moving in transitioning, as the feasibility study showed that we put out this past summer, we're into the central ore bodies next year, much higher grade. We're talking almost twice the grade of what we're processing right now. Okay.

Better leach kinetics, less fine material. Yeah. That all equates to higher production levels, lower cost. Yeah. And then we start to hit that 80 to 85,000oz a year run rate. And that goes out for the next almost eight years. Right.

SPEAKER_2 (3:51)

So we call this year a transitory year, because obviously, as a result of not getting as many ounces, your Acer goes up. Yes.

Your margins are therefore down. You are still a Korean capital. Get that.

George Salamis (4:03)

Yes.

SPEAKER_2 (4:03)

I appreciate that. But again, people will say to you, right, you've got to hit, I don't know, 42,000oz, 43,000oz in the fourth quarter, just to hit your guidance. Are we saying you're not going to hit guidance?