Americas Gold And Silver Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

On Friday, Americas Gold And Silver (TSX:USA) discussed first-quarter financial results during its earnings call. The full transcript is provided below. This transcript is brought to you by Benzinga APIs. For real-time access to our entire catalog, please visit https://www.benzinga.com/apis/ for a consultation. View the webcast at https://www.gowebcasting.com/events/americas-gold-and-silver-corporation/2026/05/15/americas-gold-and-silver-first-quarter-2026-webcast/play Summary US Airways Group Inc reported a significant increase in revenue for Q1 2026, reaching $68 million, an 84% increase from the previous quarter and 189% year-over-year, driven by higher silver production and prices. The company achieved record silver production of 787,000 ounces and sales of 830,000 ounces, with a focus on maintaining cost efficiency, reporting cash costs of $24 per ounce and all-in sustaining costs of $34 per ounce. Strategic initiatives include advancing the Galena Complex's infrastructure, with the completion of the number three shaft upgrades and progress on the PACE backfill plant, set to enhance productivity and capacity by the end of 2026. US Airways Group Inc is increasing its focus on antimony production, a critical metal, positioning Galena as a key domestic source of antimony in the U.S. The company's exploration efforts have led to multiple new discoveries, bolstering its resource base and supporting long-term growth, with a substantial exploration budget of $15 to $20 million. Management highlighted the company's strong liquidity position with a cash balance of $122 million and working capital of $67 million at the end of the quarter, supporting its aggressive growth plans. The company has seen a significant increase in market visibility, with a 1,600% increase in trading activity and broader analyst coverage, reflecting growing investor interest. Full Transcript OPERATOR Well, good morning everyone. I would like to welcome you to the Americas Gold and Silver first quarter 2026 conference call. Just a reminder that today's call is being recorded. All lines have been placed on mute, but later we will take your questions. If you have a question today at star one on your telephone keypad, I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Warren Varga, CFO. Please go ahead sir. Warren Varga (Chief Financial Officer) Thank you and good morning everyone and welcome to the Americas Gold and Silver's first quarter 2026 conference call. This call is being recorded and available on our website's events page later today. We will also be referencing a slide deck during today's webcast presentation. Joining me today is Oliver Turner, our Executive Vice President of Corporate Development. Paul Hewitt is on a plane and our CEO and Chairman is on a plane and unable to attend today, but I'm sure he'll listen to us later. I'll begin with a few housekeeping items and then walk through key operational and strategic highlights from our first quarter before turning the call over to Oliver later on. Before we begin, I would like to remind you to review our cautionary statements regarding forward looking information and non GAAP measures contained in our second quarter MD&A news release, and presentation slides. Please also note that unless otherwise stated, all dollar figures will be expressed in US Dollars throughput this call. Warren Varga (Chief Financial Officer) Before discussing our operational results, I would like to recognize continued commitment to safety across our operations. On our year end conference call I mentioned that our Galena team had achieved a major safety milestone with one full year in over 500,000 hours worked without a single lost time accident. I'm very pleased to report that as of April 14th our Cosalá team achieved one full year without a single lost time accident as well. Just a great success for our for both of our teams and we're very proud of all their efforts at sites. Safety remains a foundation of strong operating culture and I want to congratulate all of our employees on their commitment and performance. Q1 demonstrated continuing momentum across Americas. Operationally, we delivered a record consolidated silver production of 787,000 ounces and recorded consolidated sales of 830,000 ounces for Q1. Importantly, this production growth was accompanied by solid cost performance in Q1 with cash costs of approximately $24 per ounce sold and all in sustaining costs of $34 per ounce sold. Warren Varga (Chief Financial Officer) In addition to strong silver production, we also continue to increase exposure to antimony, a critical metal and with growing strategic importance in North America, we believe Galena remains uniquely positioned as one of the few active domestic sources of antimony production in the United States. The strong start to the year positions us in an excellent position to achieve our 2026 consolidated production guidance of 3.2 to 3.6 million silver ounces at an average all in sustaining cost of $30 to $35 per ounce sold. Warren Varga (Chief Financial Officer) As a reminder, consolidated total Capital expenditures for 2026 are targeted to be between 90 to 120 million dollars including 30 to 40 million dollars to be deployed at the Crescent Line. Over the past year our team has made four major new high-grade discoveries at Galena, highlighting the significance of untapped potential across the district. Our most recent discovery, the 43L TJ vein complex, was announced just two weeks ago and includes six new high-grade silver copper antimony veins located close to existing infrastructure. Several of the high-grade intercepts are shown on the slide including 1,392 grams per tonne silver, 1.5% copper and 1.5% antimony over 1.9 meters. We continue to see antimony associated with many of these high-grade silver systems, further reinforcing the strategic importance of the Galena complex as both a high-grade silver asset and and a growing domestic source of antimony for the US and for the world. At Cosalá, our exploration teams have also delivered encouraging results with the new El Alacrán discovery located just 600 meters north of San Rafael. Warren Varga (Chief Financial Officer) The discovery, which was announced six weeks ago, intersected multiple silver gold copper intercepts including 69 grams per ton silver, 0.2 grams per ton gold and 0.2% copper over 28 meters. Following follow up, drilling is already underway. The recent discoveries across our operations highlight the significant untapped potential within our asset base. To capitalize the opportunity in front of us, we've allocated the largest exploration budget of 15 to 20 million dollars and the largest exploration drilling campaign in the company's history with over 64,000 meters to be drilled across our properties. The recent exploration success also becomes even more meaningful when viewed alongside our recently announced updated Silver M and I resource announced earlier this year. At Galena measured and indicated silver resources increased 19% year over year to 88 million ounces while grades improved by 21% to 501 grams per ton silver. On a consolidated basis, Silver M and I mineral resources increased by 10% to 116 million ounces with grades increasing by 30% to 24, 200. Warren Varga (Chief Financial Officer) Sorry, 240 grams per ton silver. We believe this growing high-grade resource base provides a strong foundation to support our long term growth plans. For more details, please refer to the Americas March 30, 2026, news release, and the NI 43-101 technical reports supporting the mineral resource and reserve estimates for Galena Complex and coastal operations, which were filed on the company's profile on SEDAR+ yesterday May 14, 2026. Let me now walk you through some of the major growth initiatives currently underway across the Galena Complex. Warren Varga (Chief Financial Officer) Starting with the PACE backfill plant, progress continues to advance well Major equipment is currently in fabrication with Delivery starting in June 2026. Site preparation is nearly complete and commissioning remains targeted for the fourth quarter 2026. Once operational, the paste plant is expected to increase backfill cycle times by approximately 250% and support increasing increased longhole stopes productivity with output of being of about 93 tons per hour. Warren Varga (Chief Financial Officer) Another critical project is the number three shaft which has been recently completed. Phase one is now completed. Sorry, both phases are now completed, both phase one and phase two. These upgrades are expected to increase hoisting throughput by approximately 150% to roughly 105 tons per hour and increase total capacity to roughly 1350 tons per day. A significant step forward for the for the operations. This is a critical step in de risking our growth and enabling higher or production into 2026 and beyond. We are also making strong progress on digital infrastructure investments. Fiber optic communications are currently being installed down the number three shaft enabling real time equipment tracking, improved automation and full mine connectivity. Full coverage is targeted by the fourth quarter of 2026. At the same time, engineering and miner fabrication is underway to repurpose the Galena shaft into a long term infrastructure corridor supporting paste, power, air, water and electrical systems. All important for supporting larger scale mining operations in the future. On the processing side, Galena mill upgrades are progressing. Crusher upgrades have now been completed, flotation cells have been ordered and we continue progressing toward restarting the third mill. The goal is to increase total milling capacity from 750 tons per day to roughly 1,200 tons per day by the end of 2026. At the recently acquired Crescent Mine. We also continue to make strong progress following the acquisition, all critical systems have been restored. More than 650ft of development was completed in the first quarter and drilling activities have begun. An additional 2,000ft of development is planned during the second quarter to support resource expansion and future mining. Overall, we are beginning to see tangible results from our growth capital projects that are positioning the Galena Complex for a meaningful step change in production by the end of 2026. These advancements, combined with our strong balance sheet and growing resource base, position Galena as a key long term driver of value creation for the company. Now going to the financial results following the market close yesterday, we released our unaudited condensed interim consolidated Financial Statements and MDA for the three months and ended March 31, 2026. These documents are available on our website as well as under the company's profile on Sedar plus and Edgar. Revenue for the quarter was 68 million, an increase of 84% compared to the prior quarter and an increase of 189% over Q1 2025 primarily due to the silver production, the higher silver production discussed earlier and higher realized silver prices. During the quarter, our average realized silver price increased by 148% from Q1 2025 to Q1 2026. The average realized silver price was approximately $80 per ounce for Q1 2026 compared to approximately $32 per ounce in Q1 2025. This is largely comparable to the average London silver price, with the difference being the timing of our concentrates sales during the quarter. Our net income was 10 million or $0.03 per share for Q1 2026, an increase from a net loss of 20 million or $0.08 per share for this is primarily attributed to the higher net revenue that I mentioned earlier, and a higher gain on derivatives, offset in part by higher cost of sales and the impact of higher forward gold and silver curve prices which increased the unrealized present value of the Company's metals contract liabilities on our balance sheet, adjusted earnings for the quarter were 20 million or $0.06 per share, which represents an increase of over 260% over the Q1 2025 loss of approximately, 12 million or $0.05 per share. Adjusted EBITDA was $34 million or $0.10 per share, also a significant improvement over the Q1 2025 loss of 5.5 million or $0.02 per share. Our liquidity is in a very strong position to address our capital plans with cash balance of approximately 122 million and and working capital of 67 million at the end of the quarter. Capital expenditures were approximately 23 million during Q1, mainly due to the development initiatives at the Galena Complex that have already been discussed in support of our aggressive growth plans. I will now turn the call over to Oliver. Oliver Turner (Executive Vice President of Corporate Development) Thank you very much Warren and good morning everyone. Over the past year, Americas has experienced a significant increase in both analyst coverage and trading activity, reflecting the growing interest in the company and the progress being made across the business Today the company is now covered by 8 analysts compared to just 2 analysts a little over a year ago, marking substantial increase in both market visibility and institutional awareness. When we take the trading liquidity, the numbers are truly staggering. From January 1st to May 8th of 2026, America's traded an average of approximately $32.8 million Canadian per day, comparing to approximately $1.9 million Canadian per day during the same period in 2025. This represents an over 1,600% increase in daily traded volume. On the US NYSE exchange. We're now trading over $48 million US worth of volume, which is a 1,300% improvement compared to the same period last year. So combined we're now trading north of 100 million Canadian dollars per day. And what does this mean? This now allows us to be owned by some of the largest mining investors in the world. And I'm very pleased to say that we now have most of them on our register. It's a big step forward for America's gold and silver as we continue to build our case as a premier silver and antimony investment vehicle for institutions globally. And lastly, we're now trading with a significant beta to silver price of over 1.5 times, which is one of the strongest in the ENT silver sector. This means that for investors searching for a way to invest into a silver vehicle with strong outperformance of the underlying metal, USA shares are a terrific place to be. With that, I'll turn the call back to Warren for closing remarks. Warren Varga (Chief Financial Officer) Thank you, Oliver. Overall, Q1 represented a very strong start to 2026 and continue to demonstrate the momentum we are building across the business. We delivered record silver production and sales, advanced several key growth initiatives at the Galena complex, strengthened our balance sheet and continue to generate strong exploration across our operations. As we move through the remainder of 2026, our focus remains on safely executing our growth strategy, increasing production capacity and continuing to unlock the long term value of our asset base,. We believe the combination of high grade silver exposure, increasing domestic antimony production and significant operational growth potential positions Americas as one of the more unique precious metal stories in the sector today. Thank you again for joining us. We appreciate your continued interest and support in America's gold and silver. OPERATOR All right, operator, I think we're ready to open up to some questions here. Thank you and everyone again. If you have a question today, please press Star one on your telephone keypad. First up is Dalton Barreto from Canaccord. Dalton Barreto (Equity Analyst) Thanks. Good morning Warren, Oliver and team. Thanks for taking my question My first one's on the Galena complex. So it sounds like you're setting this operation up to be running at 1200 short tons per day I think by the end of this year. And I just want to clarify, first of all, are you permitted to go at that level and then secondly, what needs to happen to get you to that rate and what sort of time frame are you thinking? Thanks. Warren Varga (Chief Financial Officer) Yeah, thanks Dalton. I'll take that one. So, yeah, in terms of where we plan to exit the year, it's always easier to talk about ore-tons because yes, we are moving waste out of the mine, debottlenecking some areas and of course moving waste around to get back into CRF stopes, until we have the paste plant up and running ore-ton basis, we are looking to exit this year at around 650 short tons per day. That's the number that we've been striving towards over the course of the year. Of course, we started the year just over 400 tons per day and that's up from about 270 tons per day towards the end of 2024. So big step ups year over year. The most important aspect of getting there, of course, is the hoisting through upgrades that we've now completed to the number three shaft. The Phase One upgrades are complete. Phase two is also just recently, recently being completed, which are big step ups in hoisting capacity in terms of moving material underground. Obviously we've got a lot more equipment underground and then the ramp up of longhole stoping, of which We've now taken 10 panels are all critical. But the most important step towards ramping up longhole stoping, even further, of course, is that paceful plant which we are on track to have commissioning in the fourth quarter of this year. Regarding permitting, fully permitted for everything we have in our growth plan. So no problems there whatsoever. Dalton Barreto (Equity Analyst) Thanks. And then just maybe switching gear to the antimony side of things. Just frame that for me. From a strategic as well as an economic perspective, how relevant is it really to the broader silver story? And then I guess part B of that question that you can maybe answer at the same time is presumably some of your peers and neighbors in the region are also mining tetrahedride. Is there an opportunity to expand that JV to be of a much bigger regional effort? Thanks. Oliver Turner (Executive Vice President of Corporate Development) Yeah, thanks Dalton. Good questions. And started off with Cosalá. Look, last year Cosalá delivered a record 1.2 million ounces of silver there. And that was during a transition out of San rafael into the EC 120 mine, which we're now fully underway with declaring commercial production earlier this year. Really strong performance by the team down there last year. We're very proud of them. And of course this year we're going to be producing some in the region of 1.1 to 1.3 million ounces of silver there. One of the most exciting things about Cosalá going forward, of course is not only EC 120 and that delivering year after year, but of course is the exploration upside that we have. Warren talked about it earlier. The discovery that we announced at El Alacrane, which is about 600 meters north of San Rafael. That's just one of several outcropping areas across the property which we're really excited about. There's about five outcropping areas that have been identified which we're very eager to get drilling into. Just to take a little step back in history. There's been three major outcropping areas at Koslo that have been drilled off and those have actually turned into mines. So some pretty strong returns right there. So we'll continue drilling out El Alacrán, getting some real exploration dollars put into the ground there. And it's certainly an important part of the story for sure when it comes to switching back up to Idaho here and talking about tetrahedrate in the Silver Valley and beyond in Idaho. Our approach to that, of course we've announced the JV with us antimony. There is a lot of flex in that facility. So the facility that we're going to be building, which we're targeting to commission by midway through next year, about 18 months from our original announcement date on track right there, that facility is going to have flexibility in terms of the scale of fee that it accepts. We'll certainly obviously have feed or capabilities of putting enough of our own capacity through rather. But we'll also be flexing that facility with the ability to add an additional line if we find other sources of fee. We want to be collaborative with everybody in Idaho and certainly others in the United States. We'd love to have all this consolidated in just a few facilities rather than everybody building their own. So that's something we're in active discussions with. We'll see how all of that goes. Of course our primary focus is going to be putting our own feed through there. And these are not large facilities. These facilities are measured in single digit tons per hour, not talking about 1000 plus ton per day. So very small facility, but we'll be open to collaboration with others. Dalton Barreto (Equity Analyst) Thanks Guys, that's all for me. OPERATOR Your next question is from Allison Carson Desjardins. Allison Carson Desjardins Good morning and thanks for taking my question. So Dalton asked, my question is just a little bit more on the paste fill plant. It sounds like everything's progressing well and I know you touched on it, but I was wondering if you could give us just a little bit more color on how you expect it to contribute to improving mining flexibility, cycle times and just overall productivity at Galena. Oliver Turner (Executive Vice President of Corporate Development) Yeah, for sure. I'll start off there and I know we also have Evan Pilcher, of course, who's at the helmet at both operations and driving this forward. So I'll ask him to step in just afterwards to add some more color here. But starting off, everything's on track. As I said, for commissioning in the fourth quarter, we've got all of our specific pieces of equipment that are required on order that's expected to be delivered around mid year. Of course we'll have to get that commission and get the recirculation system underground,. We do to have a significant impact on times. We've talked a couple times about it being north of 250% there, in terms of cycle time improvement. There will also be, you know, improvements in primary and secondary panel mining as well. So a lot of areas where that's going to help us, it's going to help us reduce costs, it's going to allow us to move more tons underground,. So it'll be a very significant step forward for us. Evan, I don't know if you have any more specifics you'd like to touch on there. No, I think that was great. Thanks so much, Oliver. And that was it. Congratulations on the quarter. Allison Carson Desjardins Thank you, Allison. OPERATOR Just a reminder everyone, it's Star One. If you have a question, we'll go next to Amit Singh from FCP Resource Finance. Amit Singh First of all, congrats on the quarter. My question was around Galena grades. So Obviously you printed 284 grams per tonne for this quarter. I'm trying to understand how much of that is driven by the shift towards long haul stoping or that mix between galena and tetrahedride. So could you speak to that maybe so I could just model it better going forward. Warren Varga (Chief Financial Officer) Yeah. Thanks for your question. Omit. Evan, would you like to answer that question on the grades at Galena, what we can expect going forward? Evan Pilcher Yeah, sure. Absolutely. Thanks for the question. Amit. The grade's over overall are going to keep on climbing over here. The decline in grade was not due to the dilution in longhole. stopes, it was mostly mining more Galena as we were in those areas for the quarter. But the tetrahedrite is definitely around and the grades are there and we're still going to see some higher grades coming out of Galena. Amit Singh That's helpful. Thank you very much. Oliver Turner (Executive Vice President of Corporate Development) Amit. One of the things as we transition and move forward as well, just like what Evan said, it depends on which area that we're mining. And this mine has been set up to focus on silver lead for a considerable period of time. And we all know that that is where the slightly lower grades are still phenomenal silver grades, but slightly lower in comparison to that tetrahedral or the silver copper material. One of the objectives this year and moving into next year as we put more of the waste development in. That's a significant component of what our capital spend is this year. And next year we're setting up more of those silver copper stopes. So as we transition to long haul stoping, we're also transitioning into more of a focus on the silver copper. So just like Evan said, we can expect to see continued strong grade performance and increases from here. Amit Singh That's helpful. Appreciate it. Thanks guys. And I guess another question here, this would be regarding payabilities of your antimony. Could you speak to that a little bit because I'm seeing that your realized price is actually quite close to spot. Maybe share with me a bit about how payability these are at Galena for antimony. Oliver Turner (Executive Vice President of Corporate Development) Yeah. So Amit, we're happy to have a conversation offline with you about that. There's certain things we're able under the contract to discuss and other ones that were not. So I think it's best if we have a follow up call on that one and we can get in a conversation with Warren as well. Amit Singh No worries. Appreciate it. Thanks guys. Once again congrats on the quarter. OPERATOR Thank you very much Mead. Thank you. Your next question is from Dalton. Barreto, Canaccord. Dalton Barreto (Equity Analyst) Thanks for taking the follow up guys. Where are we at with Crescent? Do you still see that mine ramping up mid year? What sort of mining rates do you think you can get to this year as well as on a steady state basis? Warren Varga (Chief Financial Officer) Thanks. Thanks Dalton. Evan, I might ask you to jump in there. I know you've been there very recently, obviously. Evan Pilcher Yeah, yeah. Thanks Dalton for the question. Krasn is progressing very, very well. We're averaging. Well, not averaging. We've done 2,000ft of development as of now. Strides. We've got a bunch of new gear on site. We've also Eliminated the use of generators. So the diesel generator and compressors were on site. We ran power lines. We have fiber ops. The plan is to connect the two ramps this year, which is the Countess and the BC4. As soon as that's done, then we can start falling into production as well. Have a second means of egress. We see early in the next year in 2027, pulling some muck,, some ore, sorry, out of, out of Crescent. The most exciting thing about the Crescent is the historic mining that was done at depths we've seen some grades down there that was mined at 300 ounces per ton. So we're setting up doing drilling, finding these areas and doing some engineering on pushing another decline potentially to getting even deeper in the future. Dalton Barreto (Equity Analyst) That's great. Thanks for the color, guys. And then maybe I can just ask very quickly around the situation in Sinaloa. It seems to be deteriorating pretty rapidly. Any impact to operations or you know, shipments, that sort of thing? Warren Varga (Chief Financial Officer) Thanks, Dalton. Yeah, no, in terms of our operations, everything's been okay. Obviously we're aware of the situation in the state and have been since the beginning of this, which has been going for quite a period of time right now. So we have our own protocols in place there in terms of how we respond to things and otherwise, you know, we've got our heads down, we're mining, we're producing a concentrate and get the trucks to the coast when we can. Dalton Barreto (Equity Analyst) Thanks for taking my follow ups, guys. Thanks all. OPERATOR And everyone, as a reminder, it is Star One if you have a question today. And once again everyone, that is all the time we have for questions today. I'd like to hand the conference back over to Oliver Turner for any additional or closing remarks. Oliver Turner (Executive Vice President of Corporate Development) Yeah, thank you very much, operator. And I'd just like to say thanks to everyone who's listening on the call, no matter which time zone you're in. We appreciate the support. It's obviously been quite the transformation so far at Galena. And what I would say is we are only getting started here. There's a lot more to come. This is an extremely large system which we're in the process of unlocking step by step, quarter by quarter. And we're excited to demonstrate what we think we have assets,. So thanks again for your support. Great silver market to be an investor in and we're looking forward for many positive quarters to come. Disclaimer: This transcript is provided for informational purposes only. While we strive for accuracy, there may be errors or omissions in this automated transcription. For official company statements and financial information, please refer to the company's SEC filings and official press releases. Corporate participants' and analysts' statements reflect their views as of the date of this call and are subject to change without notice.