IVR kicks off 30,000m drill program at Paris silver project

Our development stage silver Investment Investigator Silver (ASX: IVR) just kicked off a fully funded ~30,000m drilling program at its Paris Silver Project in South Australia.

With the current round of drilling, IVR is aiming to convert more of its resource into higher confidence intervals ahead of a Final Investment Decision (FID) on the project.

More confidence in the early years of production is something that financiers are more willing to fund (and with that, lower risk generally means more attractive financing terms).

There is also drilling planned away from the mine, along the Paris Silver Corridor - any substantial ounces found out here could one day be processed at the mine IVR is developing.

(source)

IVR is well funded too, with ~$59M cash in the bank after raising $55M earlier this year to get it through to FID and to be in a position to progress some longer lead items.

The drilling around the current resource has two focuses - adding ounces from within the mine plan, and finding ounces adjacent to the mine plan that could be brought in:

(source)

Here is a look at some of the recent drilling results, which tested the margins of the current pit design - these results could upgrade the resource confidence in these areas, allowing them to be considered in development studies:

(source)

The current drilling program will expand on this, and there is also drilling along the regional silver corridor, with a few targets located less than 15km from the main action:

(source)

IVR said assays will be released with regular drilling updates as they are received and analysed.

IVR's project is already well advanced, with a Mining Lease Application recently lodged (we covered that here).

A quick recap of IVR’s project:

IVR’s project is advanced stage with a Definitive Feasibility Study delivered in Feb which showed:

• A$1.154BN pre-tax Net Present Value (NPV),
• 93% Internal Rate of Return (IRR) and
• An 11 month payback at US$80/oz silver.
• From A$260M CAPEX.

You can see our deep dive into the raise and DFS from March here.

(source)

IVR’s project has a 57M ounce silver JORC resource at an average grade of 73g/t - one of Australia's highest grade pure play silver projects.

IVR was recently drilling its project to try and open up new areas of its resource that could improve economics early into the project's life (and is back at it again).

That drilling at the main project area was focused on 2 main areas:

1. Grade control / infill drilling - drilling in and around the existing resource to increase confidence in the orebody model (reduces risks when mining).

(source)

1. Resource conversion and pit expansion - looking to extend the boundaries of the current mine plan and bring more ounces into the mine plan.

(source)

A couple of months ago IVR started building out the team to construct the project, filling roles including

• CFO,
• Project Directors (x2),
• Principal Mining Engineer, and
• Senior Exploration Geologist.

You can see our coverage on this here.

In the quarterly it was mentioned IVR had also hired Byron Gordon as Chief Development officer, who has previously worked at Export Finance Australia and prior to that Wilsons Advisory (now part of Canaccord Genuity).

So given IVR has made it clear with its current cash reserves and expected financing still required, it would be targeting debt and/or non dilutive funding of which Byron has good experience here.

What do we want to see IVR do next?

Permitting 🔄

With the DFS published, we will be watching IVR go through all of the permitting workstreams on its project.

We especially want to see the project get a mining licence and an environmental permit granted for the project as soon as possible.

Recently IVR submitted the Mining Lease Application (MLA) (source)

Here are the milestones we are tracking:

1. 🔄 Environmental permits
2. 🔄 Project infrastructure permits
3. 🔄 Mining licence granted

Project financing 🔄

The DFS outlaid a CAPEX of A$260M. We want to see IVR make progress on debt/equity financing while the silver price is supportive.

Now that the DFS has been published, the next major catalyst for IVR will be project financing.

While permitting is progressing, we want to see IVR make progress on debt/equity financing commitments for the project CAPEX of A$260M.

1. 🔄 Lender engagement and technical due diligence
2. 🔲 Financing commitments

Grade control drilling 🔄

We want to see IVR complete infill drilling at its resource and upgrade the resource in terms of classification.

Drilling on regional targets 🔄

We also want to see IVR drill out the 15km corridor of targets that sit around its 57M ounce JORC resource estimate.

The ultimate success from these drill programs would be a discovery similar to IVR’s existing resource.

Here are the milestones we are tracking:

• ✅ Geophysics/Geochemistry work
• ✅ Identify drill targets
• ✅ Drilling starts
• 🔄 Drilling results