Aya Gold & Silver: Zgounder Cash Engine Funds a 43 Moz Boumadine Build

Aya Gold & Silver (AYA) came into Q2 with a Nasdaq listing that, in the CEO's telling, "took care of the shorts" still positioned against the stock on OTC. The bigger catalyst, though, was operational. Q2 vs Q2: revenue up 151%, income up 300%, operating cash flow up 522%.

The engine is Zgounder, Aya's first mine in Morocco. The plant - completed on time and below budget, commissioned in three weeks, ramped over a year - is now running at roughly 4,000 tonnes per day against a mine producing 4,900 t/d. That gap leaves a 400,000-tonne silver ore stockpile on the surface, which the CEO frames bluntly: "Zgounder could stop mining here for two quarters and we still have ore to feed the plant." Last quarter's cash cost was $17/oz; AISC sits around $21. With $119 million of operating cash flow generated in the first six months against $140 million of capex, Zgounder's payback is now five months and its cash-on-cash yield is roughly 180% per year.

The mineral inventory is also still expanding. The latest resource update added 20 million ounces, the opposite of what short sellers had been betting on, and the company says it has discovered 550 million ounces across its portfolio over the past five years - a figure the CEO anchors to Morocco's "very good investment agreement": 3% royalty, no free carried interest.

The bull case, however, sits one project over: Boumadine. On the company's slides Boumadine is "six times the horsepower of Zgounder" - meaning roughly 37 million ounces of additional annual silver production layered on top of Zgounder's 6 Moz, for a combined ~43 Moz/year run-rate targeted by mid-2029 (full year 2030). At an expected AISC of ~$15, Boumadine's economics are designed to be Zgounder-like but bigger. The work is largely de-risked: the geology, permitting, water rights, power, and resettlement land are already secured, and the company is preparing to break ground on the power line and supporting infrastructure in Q4.

Boumadine is being staged into a revised PEA - every chapter at PFS level except the resource, which still needs drilling density to move from inferred to measured-and-indicated. Aya is running 200,000 meters of drilling this year and another 200,000 next year; an updated study is due "in the next three weeks," with full feasibility expected by July next year. Long-lead items go on order in Q1 and Q2, and the open-pit contractor is slated for selection in Q1.

What the video highlights, and what sets Boumadine apart from a typical PEA-stage project, is the district-scale optionality. The land package covers 900 square kilometers held under mining agreements. The main zone has been drilled to 5.4 kilometers laterally and only to ~500 meters depth, and management points to a recent intercept - 51 meters at 890 g/t silver equivalent in an offshoot - as the company's "best drill hole," one not yet in the resource model. The CEO's framing is direct: "When people say this is Boumadine one, there will be a Boumadine two. There could be a Boumadine three and four."

On the corporate side, the share structure is unusually tight for a producer at this stage. Aya has 144 million shares outstanding, with 46 million of those held by the board and original family-office investors - roughly a third that is effectively non-float. Institutions own around 40% and ETFs around 20%. Debt is modest at ~$70 million (net of restricted cash), and free cash stands at $183 million and growing. Once Boumadine's financial structure is locked in, the company plans to layer in a structured buyback program - "not discretionary" - funded out of operating cash flow, with no equity issuance contemplated.

The energy and currency profile reinforces the cost story. Aya's grid power in Morocco is locked under a 20-year fixed contract and is sourced from solar; the CEO expects long-run cost inflation in the "3, 4, 5%" range rather than commodity-style swings. There are no royalties to streamers on the asset, and the company operates across CAD, USD, EUR, and MAD, limiting any single-currency exposure on the balance sheet.

Sizing the prize, the host models Boumadine at 42 Moz/year on a $200 silver assumption for 2029, against an all-in cost in the $50 range - a roughly $150/oz margin, generating about $6.3 billion of annual free cash flow in his scenario. Multiplied across the producer peer set, that pencils to a multi-tens-of-billions enterprise value versus Aya's current ~$4 billion market cap. CEO Benoit La Salle confirms the internal modeling tracks similar order-of-magnitude numbers. The CEO's punchline: "It will produce 240, 250 million a year for the next 11 years. And we keep spending in exploration to increase the number of years."

There are two execution gates to watch. First, the updated Boumadine PEA due in roughly three weeks - payability, resource, and mine plan are all flagged for revision, and any change in scale or AISC will reset the bull case. Second, the seasonal cadence at Zgounder: Q1 and Q2 historically deliver ~40% of annual production due to winter weather, and Q3/Q4 the remaining 60%. The CEO notes Aya is "half the way into our guidance" for the year and "a bit better on cost," which sets up the second-half quarters as the next reporting inflection.

For investors, the article's bottom line is straightforward: Zgounder is the funding leg, Boumadine is the growth leg, and the share structure keeps dilution risk low. Both legs are now visibly in motion.