IVR extends silver project outside of the current mine plan
Our Investment Investigator Silver (ASX: IVR) just reported extensions to its advanced stage silver project in South Australia.
IVR’s project has a 57M ounce silver JORC resource estimate at an average grade of 73g/t - one of Australia's highest grade pure play silver projects.
The project has a Definitive Feasibility Study which shows:
- A$618M pre-tax NPV and a 61% IRR (at ~US$60/oz silver - silver is currently trading at US$53/oz), There was a spot price scenario of A$1.154BN pre-tax NPV and a 93% IRR (at US$80/oz silver),
- An 13 month payback on A$260M of development capital for this scenario, and
- A$39.70/oz all-in sustaining cost (US$27.39/oz) - well below that current spot price above.
AND in August IVR lodged its Mining Lease Application for the project - aiming to have it fully permitted in 2027 ahead of FID (Final Investment Decision) and ready for construction.
While that happens IVR’s also been running a ~30,000m drill program mainly to tighten up the resource.
So this last batch of results is a solid unexpected surprise to the upside - hitting extensions to the current pit design.
Here is where the results came from relative to the current pit design (in black outline):

(source)
More ounces = bigger pit = more mine life
IVR says these results will feed into an updated resource estimate targeted for 2027.
More high grade ounces in a bigger pit could improve the project economics, and more confidence in the resource matters to the financiers IVR needs to fund the A$260M build (lower risk generally means more attractive financing terms).
Again, all of these hits from today sit outside the current DFS pit design - we are not mining engineers but here is what we think IVR will be aiming for with its next pit design:

(source)
What do we want to see IVR do next?
Project permitting 🔄
Here are the milestones we are tracking:
- ✅ Heritage surveys completed (source)
- 🔄 Environmental permits
- 🔄 Project infrastructure permits
- 🔄 Mining licence granted
Project financing 🔄
The DFS showed IVR would need to fund A$260M of CAPEX to get its project built.
We want to see IVR lock in some sort of debt/offtake/pre-payment deal which we would then hope makes financing the remaining equity component easier.
Remember IVR already has $54M of cash in the bank as at September 30.
Grade control drilling 🔄
We want to see IVR complete infill drilling at its resource and upgrade the resource in terms of classification.
Drilling on regional targets 🔄
We also want to see IVR drill out the 15km corridor of targets that sit around its 57M ounce JORC resource estimate.

(source)
The ultimate success from these drill programs would be a discovery similar to IVR’s existing resource.
Here are the milestones we are tracking:
- ✅ Geophysics/Geochemistry work
- ✅ Identify drill targets
- ✅ Drilling starts
- 🔄 Drilling results




