A Fireside Chat With Willem Middelkoop

0:06 Awesome, as folks are coming to the room quite quickly, I'll say good morning, good afternoon, good evening, depending on where in the world you're signing in today. So there are many time zones, really appreciate everybody joining us, whether you're enjoying summer or winter. So we're on either side of the globe today as well. So I will say I'm thrilled today to have on the platform Joaquin Marías, presidency and director of Argenta Silver and Willem Middelkamp, an advisor to the company among many, many other roles in the industry, which I'll leave to Joaquin to enunciate later in today's event. I'll tell you, here's how today's going to work. So first off, the 2 gentlemen are going to have a conversation about Silver, Argenta, the macro, the micro, and really get into some of the details. And I'm going to ask a few questions, but then I'd love to open it up to a few questions from the audience today. That chat button in the bottom right hand of your screen you can write in questions at any time. I certainly won't promise we'll get to all questions today but we'll definitely get to a couple and I'll make sure that any we don't get to get to the Argenta team and they'll be able to get back to you particularly if you have really specific questions that don't fit with the scope of today's conversation.

0:59 The only other housekeeping item I'll note is that today's event is being recorded and will be available for replay probably in the mid-afternoon Eastern time, so in the early evening in Europe and in the early afternoon Pacific time. It will be available on YouTube, Six's YouTube channel, as well as right on this link, and it will pop right in your inbox for those of you in the room. But without further ado, I'll get into the protein of today's event and throw it over to Joaquin. Well, thank you very much, Romeo. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you, William, for being joining us.

1:28 Thank you for the audience to be present in this event. I want to tell everybody that we will be doing this in the next 6 months more often. So keep tuned and watch for the news because we will be doing different webinars or fireside chats as the one that we are doing now with Willem. We will also probably be announcing some of the press releases over this platform after they have been distributed. So first of all, I'd like to introduce Willem. Willem, he's an entrepreneur and an investor. He has been for many years involved in the silver markets. He was in his early career days a columnist, a well-known journalist and a market commentator on TV.

2:18 He is also the founder of the Commodity Discovery Fund. He is also the author of a book that is called The Big Reset, War on Gold and the

2:31 Financial Endgame. So thank you, Willem, to be with us. If you want to comment something else on you, I would really appreciate that. Thank you for the kind introduction. And I've been interested in silver for such a long time actually. I was buying my first physical silver bars in 2003. I even had to send a cheque at that time to Kitco in Canada and they sent me the physical silver in a box and I still remember the guy delivering it at my home and he couldn't carry it. It was like 1000 ounce bar and it was so heavy so

3:11 he couldn't understand what was in that box and later in 2008 I founded another company which was called Amsterdam Gold which is a billion dealer in gold and silver and So I in this field bought my first silver shares around 2004 2005 and Well, that's the reason I probably why I'm here

3:35 Yeah, yeah, that's incredible. I remember when we were talking last time together and you were telling me about all these things and I couldn't believe. So there is a question that I always have and I always wanted to ask you. Why silver and why silver now? Well at our fund, the Commodity Discovery Fund, We always study of course the supply and demand fundamentals of a metal of the market. And if you look at the fundamentals of the silver market, it's so extraordinary. Because in the past we used to have silver coins in our pockets. I'm old enough to remember I had the silver coins in my pocket. And then of course that we got rid of the silver coins actually because there was a shortage developing in the silver market already in the 1960s.

4:30 And if you do a search on YouTube on my name and silver, you can find a video I made for RTL television in the Netherlands some 10 years ago. And then I was explaining why there was a silver shortage developing in the 60s. And ever since, the market has been showing production deficits almost for 40 years.

4:59 And if you look at the current market, the amount is 400 million ounces, 3-400 million ounces more than the silver production. And we used to be able to use all these old coins, all these old ounces available to supply the market. But now I think we're very close to real physical shortages and then it gets very, very interesting for silver investors like myself. So our fund has over 10% of its investments is in silver companies, but as you know it's very hard to find real silver companies. The best silver companies are 50% gold companies nowadays. Yeah, Yeah, that's totally true.

5:49 It's funny that you are mentioning that there was people carrying gold coins in that moment, right? And there are still many people that still keeping physical silver, But today we also have ETFs. So physical silver or ETFs?

6:06 Well both serve a purpose. I'm a strong believer in holding physical silver. I've been holding that for over 20 years. I don't store it in my home. It's too bulky. So it's in a vault. And actually I built the first real private professional vault in the Netherlands and I can show you pictures how much silver is stored there for high net worth. And actually I sold the billion business in 2011, but I still have the silver of course stored there for my family. But as an investor, as a speculator, as a fund manager, we don't invest in physical silver, we invest in equities related to silver. And then you try to find the good silver names and as that there are so few good silver names.

6:54 We are invested in a few even in Argentina. I can't mention the names here but both the physical and the ETFs or the mining shares, they both have their purpose. Why investors like you should be looking for mining companies, silver mining companies? Yeah, because silver mining companies making a discovery or working on a discovery or growing a discovery, they have this operational leverage. So of course they'll do better when the silver price starts to rise and actually we've seen a breakout of silver in the last few weeks, last few months. Silver is always almost always lagging gold so after we had this large breakout for gold in the early 24 and now a year later we have the rise of silver. Silver often starts a bit later, but then it runs faster.

7:52 And if silver runs, the mining shares will run a bit more as does this operational leverage. And especially if you're growing a resource, then you have like the double whammy. And look at what happened to silver companies, silver listed companies in 2020 or 2016, they had runs of 100,200% on average. And these were only short term bull markets which took 5 or 6 months. So imagine what happens when the real shortages will hit the market, silver will jump to 100 dollars in a week and all these silver equities will be called in rocket.

8:41 Yeah, yeah. This is something that most people is asking me because they see how the market of silver is performing, they see how gold has been performing lately, all that run that gold has over 3000 per ounce, and they still waiting for silver to pick up. But the question is always if mining companies will also follow this trend of the commodities.

9:11 Yeah, our research shows, as I said, that often gold starts to run first, that will start a bull market for the whole resource space. Then metals like silver might take over and will start to run a bit faster. And our Analysis shows that the bottoming pattern for precious metals has been completed now. We had this very long downturn. Actually, my largest mistake was to start a resource fund in 2008. That was the top of the last cycle. So actually we've been in a bear market, a downtrend for 13,

9:49 14 years. And we had the real bottom for gold and precious metals early 2016, gold was trading around $1,000 per ounce. And then we had a retest of that bottom around 2020 during the COVID crisis. But the listed equities actually had the lowest valuation, a record low valuation in 2024, around 2024. So I think this is the start of a new bull market, a generational bull market, a bull market which will take much longer than the 1 in 2016 or in 2020.

10:26 And that was also the reason why I wanted to become involved in a company like this. And it's not often that I join a company as an advisor but when Frank Duster said he's been waiting for 40 years,

10:45 He's been dreaming for 40 years about building a pure silver company in Latin America. That's what I really liked. And then I actually I sent him a message, a direct message that I would like to be part of that. And but Let me ask you some questions because otherwise I'm the only one talking. What's your background in silver? Well my background is that I am from Argentina. I was born in Argentina. That's why my accent might sound a little bit weird for some people. And I am a geologist. I studied in the San Juan province in Argentina. And I have been working as an exploration geologist for different companies in different countries. And I have been working in Canada for the last 4 years, almost 4 years,

11:35 super involved with the Fiori Group. And the Fiori Group is the group that is led by Frank Yustra. And I have been helping him to identify opportunities around the world for different commodities, gold, copper, silver. And the moment to identify something related to silver, that's when I came hard with this suggestion of grabbing the project that we have today, which is a Kivar project.

12:03 And yeah, it's been a whole journey for us since the very beginning. And there was not much sense on who should be probably leading the company at this stage rather than me because obviously I am from Argentina I know the country I live here I'm based in Vancouver so it was quite advantageous to have me

12:29 leading the company at this stage and well that's pretty much my background. But you're a geologist and now you're CEO, do you feel more happy as a CEO or as a geologist in the field? Well you know it's a we always say that the geologists will

12:47 forever miss the field so I'm sitting here but I am I say that I am not only a desk CEO or a conference CEO, I have been traveling a lot to Argentina. I have been going a lot to the project and being a geologist and a CEO, it's also quite advantageous because this gives me a different perspective.

13:09 I can go to the field, I can be involved with the people, be involved with the project, be involved with the technical details that makes this project so great and it's a dual position. You were talking about Frank Juistra's initiative to build this company. What's his longer term vision for this company

13:36 and what do you hear from him about silver and why does he like it so much? Well probably he likes the silver because of the same reasons that you were mentioning, right? Today we have seen everybody is looking at that a huge deficit

13:54 in between demand and supply from silver. And this long-term vision here is to create a long-term lasting company that is going to be exploring or developing silver projects and it's going to be focused in Latin America. So We have started with this project in Argentina, but it doesn't mean that it's the end. So his long-term vision, as you mentioned, has been for 40 years dreaming about a pure Silver play. And this is the great of this project, that El Kebar project, it's a pure Silver play. We don't have copper or zinc or lead in our resource.

14:38 And this is a 50 million pure silver resource combining between infer and indicated categories. And his vision is to still grow this company into the future and to be positioned as a world leader in the mining industry for the silver metal.

14:57 So when can we expect more projects coming into the company? Because I would be most interested if we really can build it into a well a premier silver exploration company because I don't see many of them the The self exploration companies out there only have often 1 project. Yeah, that's correct and actually when it's a great question. I don't know when it's going to be, but I'm pretty sure that at some point we will acquire or do an M&A process with another project in this space. We still looking pretty much in the Latin American space, which is the original vision from Frank.

15:48 The idea is to bring something that it's very valuable for shareholders and very valuable for the company. And I have to be very honest, we have found a kind of a problem in trying to find a project for the company that is suitable for the company because there are not that many projects like Elkevar that have all the infrastructure that the project has,

16:15 a project that has that purity on the silver and that potential to keep growing, right? So it's been really hard for us to identify a project that it's like Elkivar, but we're still in an active search. We're still looking for it. And at some point we will be probably doing an M&A or some process to acquire a project and keep growing Argenta Silver into a larger company. Our goal is to be a premier exploration company. Especially finding projects which have the higher quality silver that you have over 300 grams per ton, that's very hard to find and we always look for those kind of companies and that's what I like about Argenta Silver.

17:02 Let's focus a bit on Argentina. Of course the word, the name of the country comes from silver. Argent is the French word for silver

17:11 and it's such a sad story for Argentina. This was the seventh richest country worldwide in 1970 and then they came into this fight with the US and IMF and you had a default. But now there's so much, so many resources in Argentina to be found. How important is silver for Argentina? Well, silver is super important for Argentina. It's one of the most important mineral commodities in the country.

17:43 The silver market for Argentina represents over a billion American dollars in exports, and Argentina is in between the top 5 to top 10 producers of silver in the world. So this is one of the most important commodities that the country has. And it's also driving a lot of exploration activity, and exploration activity in a way that it brings technology transference, environmental policies for better of the country. It improves and develops a lot of things in the adjacent communities.

18:20 It's very well known about the deposits in Patagonia for silver and in the north of Argentina. We are located in the province of Salta, and in the Salta province There are other projects of silver as well. So it's a very, very important community for the country. And mining as well. It's become one of the pilars for Javier Millet to

18:46 drive the future economic change in the country. So it's a very very important industry. Most of the majors have been well coming into the country, starting new projects, investing in new companies on new projects. So what's the current mood in the country regarding mining investment? Well regarding mining investment in the general picture it's very very good. We have seen things happening like the one in between BHP and Londin with the Vicuña district. We have seen a recent investment of $2.7 billion from Rio Tinto in Argentina. We have been hearing all these big companies that they are wondering to come into the country. They are starting to come into the country. So I would say that the mood is very, very good, but we need to understand that Argentina is still a federal country. So provinces are, they have certain autonomy that makes each province a different jurisdiction.

19:54 So you will have those provinces that are more pro-mining than others, but we are starting to see a revert on the situation of some of the provinces. For example, the province of Mendoza, it was an anti-mining province some years ago and nowadays it's open to mining. The spirit of people has changed. So I would say that the country is becoming more and more pro-mining every day. And you have this one deposit, the Navidad deposit, a very large silver deposit, I think it's 700 million ounces, it has been shelved. Will that ever be built? If the mine is going to be built in Chubut, well, we don't know what is going to happen.

20:40 That's a very, very big deposit, as you said. It's comparable just the resource of the deposit or the resource are comparable to the inventory of some of the major companies in the world.

20:56 So what is going to happen with that deposit, it's a great question. It's still in the hands of Pan American silver, but it's in a province that we call the marginal province. It's a province that, it's not completely an anti-mining province, but it's not as well a pro-mining province. So I think that we have to expect that these provinces will change their mood at some point.

21:18 We have to see what happens with those. Mendoza is doing the change. And some other provinces are also getting more and more open for exploration as Rio Negro in the South of Argentina. So it's a matter of waiting and being patient with those processes. Okay, well, thanks for this. I give it back to our host. Awesome, thanks so much. And I do have a couple of additional questions of my own, actually, before we get to some of the great questions that came in from the audience. The first one is actually from the audience. Willem, I'll throw it to you. And you touched on this already, but people are looking for your perspective on whether you think Salta is as supportive as the federal government when it comes to mining.

22:00 Yeah, well, the overall mood is changing for the better in Argentina. We've been investing in Argentina on and off for the last 20 years and I think the recent developments especially also since MeLight took over,

22:19 we've seen positive changes coming, especially the fact that all these majors are re-entering the country or growing their projects. The huge buyout for 4 billion of the Filo project. We gave them the Discovery Award some time ago, some years back. So I think

22:44 we start to feel more comfortable by investing in Argentina and because we spread our risk over let's say 50 to 100 projects and let's say 30 to 40 countries, we can accept quite a bit of risk. But Argentina

23:03 is a country where you need to be invested now, especially if you take copper and silver very serious, especially the exploration stores. No, appreciate that extra context. Well, Kien, I got one for you. With 60% of your drill program focused on exploration drilling, what gives you the confidence to allocate such a high percentage to new targets? Well, we are allocating that much exploration into the project because historically the project has seen all the opposite. So this is a project that I started to get really well explored in 2008 until 2013.

23:39 Then it's so very, very sporadic exploration until now. And during all the history of the project, the project has seen 75% of drilling allocated only to the resource definition and only 25% of the drilling went into exploration. And we only see that 1% of the property has been thoroughly explored or drilled. So the upside potential is very, very, very big. We already know that there are 45Moz of Silver on the Indicator category and just 4 in the Infer category. So that resource has been defined. We don't need to drill more in the resource. We will do some step out and some follow up, obviously, as you naturally would do, but we would like to incorporate ounces into the project by the discovery.

24:38 So we want to go out there, we want to follow all those evidences and indications that are super super sound to us at this moment. And they are telling us that we should be drilling out there. So that's where we are going now. We are going to be doing more exploration rather than just hitting the resource that it's already been defined. Great. Just a quick follow up. What are the grades from evidence? What are we looking at for that right now? What are the evidences? Grades for evidence. Yeah. Grades for evidence. Yeah. So the evidence is that we have the grades that we are following. And you know that the resource, it's a very, very high grade resource, right? So this is a resource of over 400 grams per ton. And we have some intercepts, some historical intercepts of over the kilogram, in some cases, 2 kilograms or 5 kilograms of silver per ton in several meters, and this makes the deposit a very rich deposit. So what we are trying to find in the field are evidences like those, rocks that we are knowing that are super loaded in silver, and as well structural changes.

25:51 What we did, and this is something that I want to comment very briefly, Romeo, we grabbed this project and we decided to take a step back. Instead of jumping into the project and start exploring at once, we said, okay, let's take a step back and approach this project with a much intelligent approach and much more cautious approach. So we start compiling information. We start revising all the historical information. We re-log almost 30% of the historical drilling. So more than, or over 30,000 meters have been re-logged. And with all this information, we start putting everything in 3D. This is the first time that the project has seen a 3D program like Leapfrog and all these new programs. So with all this evidence, this is that we are now targeting the new areas that's where we are going.

26:45 Now this thrilling system that we are doing, this 4000 meters, is part of what we call the foundations of the company. So we will see much more coming in the future. Awesome. Well, looking forward to it. Willem, I've got one for you. In a crowded field of silver juniors, how do you see the company differentiating itself? Well, I've been active in this field of discovery investing for the last 20 years, and what I learned is that you have some of these guys who have serial success. Whether it's Robert Friedland or Warren Beatty or Frank Joustra, they always seem to be able to create success. And After thinking a lot about this, I think this has to do with some special talents needed to really bring a project forward. It's not only about the quality of the rocks, of course that helps a lot, but you also need to promote it in the right way, you need to finance it in the right way, you need to be able to find partners.

27:57 Agenda just found a new strategic shareholder which is an ultra high net worth individual based in Argentina. So guys like Frank are able to find these partners and I've seen it time and again if you have the world class discovery it doesn't matter who's leading it but if you have an average good project it's very important what group is starting to develop it because you can really screw up a project and another group can build it into a huge success. And market timing is very important and that's what I liked about the situation when I heard Frank was involved.

28:45 He had been waiting 40 years to build a silver company in Latin America. He knew just like us how the fundamentals are in favor. So you need to start at a rock bottom situation from the market and then grow it with help of some of your own money, some outside money, some good partners. And then we feel, well, relaxed to join a situation like that, because that often leads to success. Success is not guaranteed. You know, there's no guarantee this company will be sold or will be a huge success, but the odds are a lot higher when you have these people involved.

29:31 No, makes a ton of sense. And speaking of upcoming success, Joaquin, what are some milestones that investors should be on the lookout for for the rest of the year? Well, this is a great question, Romeo. And the milestones, first of all, we need to wait for the results coming out from this 4,000m programme that we are doing. And again, what we are doing is the foundations of the Argentina Silver that we want to see in the future. That's why we took this step back and we are going with this approach. So I hope that in the future we will see a larger programme, a much larger drilling programme, hopefully over or around 10,000m in the project. And that's going to happen hopefully by the Argentina summer, which is going to be between October and April.

30:21 Next to that, I hope that we're still growing up the amount of houses that we have in the ground through the discovery. So the catalysts, as I always say, it's always the results. Results, results, and results for us are the most important. We want to deliver. And as we were discussing or talking with Will a minute ago, we are still active looking for other projects. So we don't know the when, but we know that we are looking for other projects. So that might be another very important catalyst. And again, for us, the results are the most important thing. We have a huge advantage that I was also wondering to comment. We have all the infrastructure in place. So we have the external infrastructure and we have the internal infrastructure.

31:11 We have our company, it's fully built. We acquired the project with that company in there. So most of the investment coming from investors, it's being allocated into exploration and not into infrastructure. And that's a big difference with some other explorers out there. That's why we are focused mostly on results. Awesome. Well, excited to see what comes next. Willem, if you don't mind, I've got some back to back macro questions for you from the chat and then I'll leave it to you guys to wrap up for today. So we kind of touched on this in the beginning, but Julio asks a pretty direct question. Will the tension in the silver gold ratio ever break? Why has it been pushed so far? So I'll throw it to you. Silver is quite a small market. And as many of the more informed investors are aware, the price discovery mechanism for metals like gold and silver is not on the physical market, it's on the future markets, on the COMEX.

32:07 And because silver is such a small market, it was much easier to manage to control the silver price and keep and stay in control of the silver price in the last, well, 10 to, well, let's say the last few decades. I think the usual suspects who are able to control these prices, they can be found on Wall Street. That's my personal opinion. I wrote quite a bit about that in my books and I think they're starting to lose control about, well, taking control, keeping control over the gold price. That's why I've seen this huge run. And now they're starting to lose control of the silver price as well. But they're about to lose control because they still keep to, well, seem to manage to be able to keep silver under $40.

33:00 And what's the evidence I have that these prices are being manipulated? Well, if you look at the short open interest on the future markets, silver has the highest open interest on short positions, owned by just 4 traders. Gold is second, they have platinum and palladium. So we know these games are being played, but now the price discovery mechanism is moving from west to east. China has been building a very liquid future market in Shanghai as well. I think we're just in the process that this price discovery mechanism is moving east and that's why you see these violent moves. Pleasant and Palladium are breaking out as well.

33:45 So I think this is all part of this reset process. The West is starting to be in decline and the East and the BRICS countries are starting to become more and more important, especially in these markets. And that's, Well, to come back to your question, sorry for the long answer. We've seen the gold-silver ratio hovering around 100 for quite some time. If you look at the rocks, Silver is more abundant than gold, but not 100 times more abundant. You know, it's like 15 to 1. So the silver price should be 15 times more cheaper than gold, not 100 times more. So I think you'll see a break of this ratio and silver will start moving higher relative to gold. I think we're witnessing the very start of that move and often and that's something which I find very interesting.

34:43 I've been involved in these markets after the Lehman crash, after the COVID crash. And I witnessed, we witnessed that during the recovery, it's always silver which takes over during the second phase of the recovery. And then you see this ratio coming down. And I think we're on the verge of that happening. You also see that if you look at the Toronto Stock Exchange Venture Index, the exploration companies are starting to move faster and go higher than let's say the producers and this coincides with the more mature phase of a recovery in the markets. And one follow-up actually from the chat, speaking about the economic decline of the West, some crystal ball gazing, are we due for a recession in the US and how could that impact the silver price?

35:30 I think we're in a recession in the US. I've been traveling through Nevada a few weeks ago. If you look at a lot of the indicators, you can clearly see that the economy is going down, delinquencies are starting to rise in real estate and car loans as well. When the government reports a recession, it's often a lagging indicator, then the recession is almost over. Well, just listen to President Trump. The way he's putting pressure on the Federal Reserve to lower rates. You don't do that because the economy is going perfectly.

36:20 He understands the economy needs help. I think QE and money printing is around the corner. Elon Musk is out with this cost savings program. If you look at the big beautiful bill, it's a big beautiful money creation again. So you can't stop this train more money printing and I think the smart people, the smart money will continue to flee towards everything the government can't print, especially gold, silver and Bitcoin. I appreciate that answer very much but let's turn it around to good news for the end of today's event. I'll throw it to you Joaquin, for what are you most excited about at Argenta over the next 6 months and Willem I'll give you a chance to do the same. Well, the most exciting, it's that we have built a beautiful company. We are, as I said, again, we are building these foundations. We have identified beautiful targets to keep exploring.

37:17 I think that great news will be coming out from this project. It's a project that it's been abandoned or I don't want to say they were neglected but it hasn't been properly addressed in many areas. With new technology, with new eyes, with a fresh new look, we have found breakthrough evidences for things that we hope they will change the course of the project in the future. And that's why we are so encouraged on following the exploration into the future. So we are very grateful to have shareholders like Frank Juistrad, Roderick Dwellerstein, advisors, as Willem in our board. So yeah, we are building here something that I think that it's going to be very, very powerful.

38:05 Awesome, and Willem, I'll leave it to you to finish off there with what you're most excited about. Yeah, well, we're specialized in discovery investing, so we always like the exploration upside. So we want to see the drills turning and find more ounces in the ground. That's why we prefer exploration companies over producers. Producers end the year often with less ounces in the ground because they produced it and sold it. And If you invest in an exploration company which is working on a discovery, growing the discovery, it often ends with more ounces in the ground at the end of the year. That's our strategy. I'm looking forward to visit the project myself because I've never been on site there and let's do that in our wintertime here in Europe is beautiful weather now and when the winter starts to turn bad it's a good time to travel to Argentina and well I was promised that we would eat some good steaks as well, so I'm looking forward to that.

39:09 That's always the promise from an Argentine. We can't promise more than that. Welcome for the silver and the stakes. Steak and a Malbec sounds like a great promise. That's a great combination. Steak, Malbec and silver. There you go. Joaquin, Willem, thanks so much for this conversation. I think it was really great. I always love when I feel like I've learned something at the end of a chat. So I really appreciate both of your time. Everybody who joined us, thanks so much too. If you come up with additional questions, please do send through. I'll make sure the Agenda team gets them, but everyone, this was a great session. Thank you