Vizsla Silver plans its return to Panuco: military-backed security, mid-2028 first silver, and a build it says is fully funded

Vizsla Silver plans to be back at its Panuco project in Mexico by the end of 2026, with first silver now targeted for around the middle of 2028 — and possibly toward the end of that year. That was the message from president and CEO Mike Conner on The KE Report, his first appearance on the program in several months, following January events in which the company lost employees and co-workers and moved its work off site. Despite the disruption, he argued the project kept moving: "we've really materially advanced the project to construction readiness."

## What January changed — and what it did not

The January events remain raw. Conner said the company has supported the affected families substantially and built a foundation in their memory. Operationally, the main cost is time. Vizsla now expects first silver "around the midpoint of '28... perhaps towards the end of '28," a shift he described as slight rather than fundamental.

Security will visibly reshape the site. The mill, tailings facility and the already-built underground mine stay where the feasibility study placed them, but the plan adds a likely military installation and supporting security infrastructure that Conner declined to detail. He called the approach common among Mexican mining operators and sized the security spend at roughly $10 million, with another $5–10 million to follow.

## Permitting intact, with government backing

Conner said the episode has not delayed permitting. He pointed to a run of environmental impact assessments (MIAs — Mexico's key project approvals) cleared across the industry by SEMARNAT, the environment ministry, and said he expects Vizsla's remaining use permit "in a reasonable time frame." Final investment decision (FID — the formal board-level green light to build) follows those permits. He described support from the Mexican government and military as nearly overwhelming, saying officials want the project — and the prosperity and stability it can bring — to move forward.

## Contracts signed; only the mining contract left

Nine months of desktop work produced two cornerstone awards. M3 takes the EPCM contract (engineering, procurement and construction management — the firm that runs the build), with a track record at large Mexican mines including Gatos, Peñasquito and Camino Rojo. FLS will supply the eight major equipment packages for the mill. The mining contract is the only major award still outstanding.

On cost, Conner's message was that these awards lock in confidence: the feasibility study's capital estimate still stands, any capex movement sits outside feasibility-study items, and the added security spend is small against project economics even at the study's metal price assumptions.

## A team built to operate, not to sell

Vizsla has spent the year hiring operators. Luis Lazaro, president of Mexico, is a 30-year Mexican executive and engineer who previously ran Mexico's largest citrus business and worked at Cemex. Diego, who leads government relations, built his career inside Mexico's mining authorities, including FIFOMI, the federal mining investment vehicle — a relationship that produced a $10 million working-capital loan for Vizsla. Dave D'Antonio adds deep underground mining experience, Guillermo Hernandez arrives from Lundin Gold's Fruta del Norte, and Suzy Horna joined as corporate secretary from Gatos. Conner framed the hiring as a statement of intent: many owners would drill out such a project and sell it, he said, but Vizsla believes the company is worth too little for that and intends to build it instead.

## Underground first, with a 25-million-ounce conversion target

The return to site restarts the underground, not the surface build. The underground mine is already developed to the 460 level — the ore level — and two drill bays were installed before the pause. Conner said about 25 million ounces of inferred resources (the lowest-confidence resource category) sit within reach of those bays and can be converted into higher-confidence categories and into the mine plan. High-grade ore would be stockpiled at surface while underground development continues. Beyond that, the company wants to drill the extension beneath the nearby town, where grades improved as drilling closed in but surface access proved impractical.

## A district barely tested

Conner estimates Vizsla has drilled nearly 400,000 meters at Panuco and holds six years of exploration data, yet he described the district as barely explored. By his count, what he calls the largest undeveloped high-grade silver resource sits on less than 5% of the company's veins, on ground consolidated only six or seven years ago, with more ground added late last year. He cited the Napoleon discovery — found after a Covid-era pause and a fresh look at the data — as evidence that a step back can sharpen targeting.

## The valuation case

The host put Vizsla's market value near C$2 billion, well off its highs from earlier in the year. Conner replied that the company holds just over $400 million in cash — roughly twice the project's capex — plus about $25 million of equity from a prior transaction and the $10 million working-capital loan, and said no additional financing is needed to build. He argued the shares trade at a fraction of his estimate of net asset value (NAV — what the project in hand is worth today), noting that comparable developers he named, including SilverCrest and Gatos, changed hands at an average of about 1.7 times NAV in their build-out phase. These are management's figures, not independent appraisals.

## What to watch

The near-term milestones are concrete: the return to site by year-end, the remaining use permit, the mining contract, then FID. Underground drilling would follow. The main execution risk remains the security situation; its timeline cost so far has been, in Conner's words, slight.