AbraSilver: Salta permit in hand, and a construction decision in sight by year-end

AbraSilver has spent years as a drilling story. In a CEO.CA interview, president and CEO John Mitiotis made the case that the company is now something different: a developer-in-waiting with its main environmental permit approved, a second permit imminent, and a construction decision he expects by the end of 2026.

## The permit that changes the conversation

The milestone at the center of the interview is the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA — the approval a project needs before it can build) for the company's flagship project in Salta province, Argentina. Mitiotis says the Salta EIA arrived a few weeks before the interview, about 15 months after the process began. He describes Argentine permitting as thorough, with extensive community consultation, but quick and efficient compared with other jurisdictions.

One approval remains. The project also needs an EIA from Catamarca province, which Mitiotis expects "imminently, within the next few weeks." Once it arrives, he says the company will be fully cleared on environmental permitting. What then stands between permits and construction is money. Construction waits on project financing, and Mitiotis says preliminary discussions with potential financing partners have already begun and will advance once the definitive feasibility study (DFS — the final technical and economic blueprint) is published later this quarter.

## RIGI turns an assumption into a fact

AbraSilver was among the first projects included under Argentina's RIGI investment incentive regime, and Mitiotis says that approval is now officially in hand. That matters because the company's pre-feasibility study (PFS — an earlier, less detailed economic study) had only assumed RIGI membership. He lists the concrete terms: 30-year fiscal stability, corporate tax at 25% instead of 35%, elimination of export duties, and no foreign-exchange restrictions for companies that qualify.

On his numbers, the regime is the largest single swing in the project's economics. Under the PFS, near then-current spot prices, he says RIGI was worth well over $1 billion in additional free cash flow over the life of mine — and with the resource now materially larger, he expects the figure in the upcoming DFS to be well north of that. "It's really a game changer," he says.

## A resource still growing

The interview also walks through the updated mineral resource estimate (MRE — the company's measured inventory of metal in the ground). Mitiotis puts it at roughly 450 million ounces of silver-equivalent, a combined figure that converts the project's gold into silver terms so the two metals add up to one number. That is up from about 350 million ounces announced in July 2025. Over the ten months between updates, he says measured-and-indicated silver resources grew about 25% and gold resources about 50%.

His message is that growth is not done. Phase 6 drilling is ongoing, results have arrived in a series of announcements this year — the latest about a week before the interview — and he expects the system to keep expanding. In his account, this is now one of the largest undeveloped primary silver projects in the world.

## Why the deposit's shape matters

Mitiotis argues the geology sets the project apart from most primary silver mines, which he describes as typically deep sulfide deposits requiring underground mining and higher grades to justify the added cost. AbraSilver's mineralization sits close to surface in oxides, suited to open-pit mining and, in his words, easy to process.

He says the grades are unusually strong for that setting: a high-grade silver zone running about 150 grams per tonne (g/t — grams of silver per tonne of rock), with intercepts of well over 300 g/t silver across 10-plus metres. The main deposit has recently delivered the standout gold results, and he sees room to keep adding gold there. He also stresses that the oxide portion of the system carries no base metals — no zinc, copper, or lead — making it, in his words, 100% precious metals. These are the CEO's figures; grades alone do not make a mine.

## The economics on the table — and the update coming

The hard numbers investors can check today are still the years-old PFS figures Mitiotis recited: about $540 million US in upfront capital, payback in under a year at spot prices, and an internal rate of return (IRR — the annualized return on invested capital) approaching 100% at current spot prices. He presented those himself, and investors should read them as pre-DFS management figures rather than current numbers. The DFS, due later this quarter, is meant to restate the economics against the larger resource.

## What to watch

- The Catamarca EIA, expected within weeks. - The DFS later this quarter, with updated economics. - Project financing talks, to advance after the DFS. - A construction decision by year-end — asked directly whether the production decision is expected at the end of this year, Mitiotis answered with one word: "Yes." He then points to construction starting early the following year.

The caveats are the standard ones for a pre-production developer: every number in the interview comes from the company's own CEO, financing is not yet secured, and the economics lean on spot prices. But the sequence he lays out is clear — permit, study, finance, build — and the next few quarters should show how much of it holds.