It’s time! Just before the silver price truly broke out, the Canadian silver company Kootenay Silver (WKN A3EYKD / TSXV KTN) secured 20 million CAD (!) in fresh capital and now intends to let the drills do the talking. And the new drilling program, set to start in just a few days, will be almost larger than all previous drilling campaigns combined!
Originally, Kootenay CEO James McDonald intended to raise only 12 million CAD for the 2025 drilling season, but investor demand was so strong that the financing had to be increased first to 17.4 million and then to 20 million CAD “had to be”!
In any case, the coffers are now bursting with fresh capital – and Kootenay plans to deploy the funds as early as the end of this month (!) to conduct a multi-phase drilling program with a planned scope of 50,000 meters at the Columba silver project! For comparison: Between 2019 and 2025, a total of 53,000 meters of drilling were carried out on the project…
Kootenay Silver just Presented a New Resource Estimate for Columba
For Columba, Kootenay Silver had just presented an initial resource estimate about a month ago, which already amounted to 54.1 million ounces of silver, 25.2 million pounds of lead, and 65.6 million pounds of zinc! (5.92 million tonnes at 284 g/t silver, 0.19% lead, and 0.50% zinc) That’s an excellent start, but the company is convinced that’s exactly what it is: just a start!
Because, as Kootenay Silver emphasizes, all ore veins at Columba are wide open for expansion – both along strike and at depth! Since the veins are quite wide, averaging 5 to 6 meters in all zones, and, most importantly, show excellent continuity – also regarding silver grades – Kootenay will initially undertake 20,000 to 30,000 meters of drilling to expand the known mineralization in the corridors around veins D, F, and B.
These are accordingly the “low hanging fruits” or, in German, the ‘niedrighängenden Früchte’, which CEO James McDonald expects, as he explained to us in an interview, to potentially lead quickly to a substantial expansion of resources at Columba. The goal is to double the resource proven to date, though not necessarily with these drillings yet.
Kootenay Silver will not, however, limit itself to drilling near the known mineralization, but will instead focus a portion on testing new targets on the property. And according to the company, there are already plenty of these, also given the numerous existing veins with high grades and widths of several meters! As the company states in its presentation: “The silver grades are excellent throughout the mineralized structure.”
Kootenay Silver Has Total Resources of >300 Million Ounces of Silver Equivalent
But Kootenay is more than “just” Columba! The company has three additional silver deposits on the Promontorio-La Negra and La Cigarra properties and with these, including Columba, totals 214.2 million ounces of silver equivalent in the measured and indicated resource category, as well as another 109 million ounces (including Columba) in the inferred category!
Like Columba, La Cigarra is located in the Mexican state of Chihuahua, while Promontorio and La Negra are in the adjacent state of Sonora. And both La Cigarra (2024 resource) and Promontorio-La Negra (2023 resource) have numerous drill targets that lend themselves to expanding the known mineralization!
Recently, Kootenay has focused particularly on Columba and will continue to do so for now, as described above. Given the strong silver price, which continues to trade above the 38 USD mark – and which numerous analysts soon see at 40 USD or more – CEO McDonald explained in an interview with Goldinvest.de that they are already internally evaluating how La Cigarra and/or Promontorio-La Negra can also be advanced further.
Conclusion: The financing, which Kootenay Silver completed at the end of June, was priced at 1.05 CAD per unit and brought in a gross of over 20 million CAD for the company. After the stock initially soared shortly thereafter, it has now returned close to this issue price – unlike other placements, the new shares were not subject to a lock-up period.
We consider this an excellent starting position for investors who are aware of the risks of investing in exploration companies. Firstly, given the continued extremely positive market environment and the fact that Kootenay, due to its already massive resource base, has high leverage to the silver price, and secondly, because the company has freshly filled coffers and plans to initiate the first phase of the largest single drilling program in company history in just a few days (end of July)! We believe that then – and at the latest with good drill results – new momentum should come into Kootenay’s stock. Risk-tolerant investors should at least add this stock to their watchlist!
