Magma Silver is Unlocking an Advanced Silver and Gold Asset in Peru

CEO.CA Jun 16, 2026 5:44

Summary

Magma Silver's Peru deposit is primary silver with secondary gold, unusual since silver normally arrives as a byproduct of copper, lead or zinc.

About $14.5 million went into the deposit before Magma Silver, and a 2011 Newmont report called it viable at $20 silver and $1,200 gold.

The next 90 days target confirmation drilling at permitted Yoromino, since Magma Silver never obtained Newmont's drill core and must redrill.

Barley estimates open-pit heap leaching — spraying chemicals on stacked ore — costs $40 per metric ton against over $300 per ton of gross value.

Peru's mining share of GDP, about 15%, keeps government cooperative in Barley's view, though he counsels patience with permitting pace.

Anglogold Ashanti is cited, with Newmont, as one of the two companies that explored Niinobamba before Magma, at a cost that included roughly $14.5 million of prior spending.
The guest maps Anglogold's ground to the Niinobamba Main north and south zones and says that area is well understood because of work done by Anglogold and Bear Creek.

The guest says Newmont worked Niinobamba between 2007 and 2011, spending about $7 million on 65 drill holes, thousands of assays, sampling, metallurgical work and fatal-flaw studies.
He says Newmont's 2011 report told its bosses the deposit was economically viable at $20 silver and $1,200 gold with lots of upside, and that Newmont had only tested a small piece of Magma's overall property.
Magma obtained all of Newmont's historical documentation, and the guest frames that inherited data as the starting point for advancing the project.
He treats Newmont's conclusion that the deposit would be a mine as credibility for restarting work, while noting Magma does not hold the original drill core.
He says Magma has permits for Newmont's Yoromino area and must redrill part of it to confirm the earlier results before advancing.

Top takeaway He argues Niinobamba is differentiated by being a primary silver deposit with secondary gold, and by roughly $14.5 million of prior work by Newmont and Anglogold that already de-risks it.
He frames the 90 days after this June 2026 interview as a catalyst window of drilling at Yoromino plus surface preparation at Niinobamba Main, with permits for Yoromino already in hand.
He cites Newmont's 2011 judgement that the project was economically viable at $20 silver and $1,200 gold with upside as the anchor for its potential, on ground covering only part of Magma's property.
He claims an open-pit, potentially heap-leachable setup costing about $40 per metric tonne against more than $300 per tonne of gross value, making the project largely insensitive to commodity prices.
His advice to junior-mining investors is to judge the team first, then test whether a project can withstand pricing pressure through the commodity cycle.