Can you introduce Tier One Silver (TSLV) and provide an overview of the company’s portfolio?

Tier One Silver (TSLV) is a new exploration company that just started trading on the TSXV. It was spun out of Auryn Resources in October 2020. We raised and spent over C$100 million in Auryn looking for world-class precious and base metal discoveries. We succeeded in identifying significant projects in both Canada and Peru, including three flagship opportunities, and now Tier One Silver has one of them — the Curibaya project. This project has been getting a lot of attention due to the incredible high-grade silver that’s been sampled on surface and the large-scale geophysical targets situated directly below that high-grade. We have also identified two additional high potential projects – Hurricane Silver and Emilia. Hurricane Silver is an underexplored region of Peru with exceptional silver grades and outcropping veins identified in early sampling work. Emilia, which sits next to Tía María, could be described as an analogue to Cerro Verde – a massive porphyry system outcropping along the coast of Peru that has seen limited exploration work.

What type of mineralization do you have at Tier One’s flagship Curibaya property?

Curibaya is an 11,000-hectare property located in a copper porphyry belt that hosts some of Peru’s largest deposits, including Cerro Verde, Toquepala and Quellaveco. It is a fully preserved precious metal target, the first major epithermal occurrence on this belt, on top of a what may potentially be a large porphyry intrusion, which we’ve identified through magnetics. Of consequence, the highlights include 80 samples on surface that run over 500 gram silver up to to 298 kilo silver over a 20 km2 alteration system, as well as about 60 samples that run over 2 g/t gold up to 934 g/t gold.

We recently completed geophysics, and identified 750 m of veins and breccia structures, as well as a massive mineralized target that’s about 400 m in diameter. This could potentially be the nucleus that these metals emanate from, situated above a porphyry target that would start about 500 m from surface. This is one of the largest exploration opportunities for a precious metal system that I have seen in my 21 years in this business in terms of abundance of high grade, scale identified through geophysics and proximity to world-class deposits on a major mining trend.

On February 11th, TSLV announced it would undertake a non-brokered private placement for gross proceeds of up to C$10 million. Where will this money be directed?

The capital will take us to the end of the year, allowing Tier One Silver to fund the approximately 10,000 m of drilling at Curibaya, where we will target the precious metal system as well as the potential porphyry targets below. It will also cover initial targeting work at our newly acquired Hurricane and Emilia projects to bring them to a drill-ready stage as well.

Cumbersome permitting has caused investment in exploration to decrease. Have you noticed an improvement in the climate for juniors in Peru recently?

A year or two ago, I would have complained about the length of time it takes to obtain permits, however, there has certainly been a shift since Covid. I believe Peru understands the importance of expediting project development so Peruvians can benefit from the wealth created by large-scale mining operations. One of the most important adjustments the ministry made was allowing companies to trench without a drill permit, supporting early-stage exploration. For Curibaya, we obtained our FTA permit in a period of about five months, receiving it on December 28th during the impeachment and during Covid limitations.

What are your feelings regarding the uptick in silver-focused juniors?

Silver is the best performing equity for an exploration company during a bull market. We all saw the Reddit and GameStop event, and as this developed it really brought the world’s attention toward silver and its incredible potential as an investment and for industrial uses. Silver has a history of outperforming all precious metals. I would not want to see silver shoot up too sharply overnight, as this could be short-lived, and we do not need inflated prices to make our project work.