IVR increases silver recoveries for DFS due in early 2026

Our development stage silver Investment Investigator Silver (ASX: IVR) announced an update for the optimisation work ongoing on its upcoming Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS).

IVR owns the Paris silver project in South Australia which has a 57M ounce silver resource with an average grade of 73g/t.

The project was discovered back in 2011 during the last silver bull run - we are hoping IVR can put the project into development during this bull run.

The last time a study was done on the project was back in 2021 - using a Base case silver price of US$24.70/oz = A$34.30/oz.

Now, IVR is completing a Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) with silver prices trading near all time highs.

IVR expects to have its DFS released in H1 2026. (source)

Interestingly, IVR had the following in its most recent presentation which showed that the increase in the silver price since that last study has added >A$1BN in free cashflow to the project’s mine life:

If the latest presentation by IVR is anything to go by, then we could get a fairly strong uplift on the numbers from IVR’s last feasibility study.

Here is a slide which shows >A$1BN in free cashflow added to the project’s economics

Since that slide was put out to market the silver price in AUD terms has gone from $73/oz to $95/oz- up ~30%...

So that cash flow number could be even higher now…

(Source)

Today, IVR showed the market how the upcoming DFS could improve even further with technical improvements to the mine design and processing flowsheet.

Here were our key takeaways from today’s announcement

Before getting to our key takeaways from the announcement, its worth checking out Managing Director, Lachlan Wallace talk through the announcement:

(Source)

Here are our key takeaways:

1. IVR showed that it can increase its silver recovery rates by ~6% by “reducing the primary grind size to 53 microns” - basically, introducing more crushing/grinding to separate more silver from the ore being mined.

AND

2. Updated pit optimisation incorporating updated costs and silver prices - basically being able to add more of the project into the mine plan because parts of the project that were previously considered uneconomic to mine, could now be considered economic.

For the pit shell optimisation, IVR chose to use a silver price of A$70 per ounce.

(which is still well below current spot prices of ~$95 per ounce).

That updated silver price also means the cut-off grade for material that can be mined almost halves (from ~43.5g/t silver in the 2021 PFS to “a range of 22 to 27 g/t silver”

The end result?

IVR adds ~13M ounces more silver to its mine plan relative to its 2021 PFS…

(13M ounces of silver at today’s prices is ~$1.25BN in silver)

(source)

Here is how those changes would look in table format relative to the 2021 PFS - the main ones are the updated mining costs, recovery rates, reduction in strip ratio and the increase in the amount of silver that can be mined:

(source)

While there are increase to mining costs (to be expected), the improvements could far outweigh those costs - especially with a much higher silver price and almost ~13M ounces more silver in the mine plan.

As for the other key takeaway which is a potential ~6% increase in silver recovery rates.

IVR completed additional metallurgical testing to come up with the new grind size in its mine plan - which we think will work in the company’s favour when the projects brought into production.

The way we see it, its taking a more conservative approach by reducing grind size to underwrite the recovery rates of the project.

The worst possible outcome would be if the company went into production and then recovery rates were way below what was expected…

An increase in recovery rates results in more silver staying out of the ground and being added to what is able to be sold, so directly adds to revenues.

(source)

And here are the zones where those samples were taken from:

(source)

What do we want to see IVR do next?

Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS) on the Paris silver project 🔄

We want to see IVR complete and release its Definitive Feasibility Study (DFS).

Here are the milestones we are tracking for the DFS:

🔄 Pit design

🔄 Flowsheet revision

🔄 Throughput optimisation

🔲 DFS completed

Exploration drilling on regional targets 🔄

We want to see IVR drill out the 15km corridor of targets that sit around its 57M ounce JORC resource estimate.

🔄 Geophys/Geochemistry work
🔄 Identify drill targets

🔲 Drilling starts

🔲 Drilling results

Permitting of the Paris silver project 🔄

We want to see IVR go through all of the permitting workstreams on its project. We especially want to see the project get a mining license and go through all of the environmental permitting process.

Here are the permitting milestones we are tracking:

🔲 Environmental permits

🔲 Project infrastructure permits

🔲 Mining license granted