We talked with show sponsor Shawn Khunkhun, CEO of Dolly Varden Silver (🇺🇸DOLLF -- 🇨🇦DV), about the company’s remarkable progress and the ongoing success of their exploration projects in British Columbia’s Golden Triangle. Khunkhun shares insights into Dolly Varden’s recent drilling results, which have consistently exceeded expectations and positioned the company as a leader in high-grade silver and silver-gold mineralization.
The discussion dives into Dolly Varden’s growth strategy, including the acquisition of the Homestake property and how this area has yielded some of the highest grades in the region, drawing comparisons to other successful mines like Newmont’s Brucejack.
The recent drill results have been exceptional, demonstrating both high-grade silver and gold mineralization. It found wide silver-rich intervals, with grades increasing at depth. Intercepts reached 1,000 grams per ton of silver. It found over an ounce per ton gold with multiple meter intervals suggesting high expansion potential. Khunkhun explains the challenges and excitement of setting high benchmarks each year, as Dolly Varden continues to unearth silver and gold deposits with increasing grade and continuity.
With C$34 million in the bank and impressive drilling results, Dolly Varden is fully funded for the upcoming exploration season.
We also reviewed the increasing demand for silver, fueled by its dual role as an industrial metal and a precious metal investment. Tight supply, declining production rates, and heightened interest from major investors, suggest a much high price is coming for silver.
As the silver market gains momentum, Khunkhun shares his belief in the potential for triple-digit silver prices, driven by increased demand in areas like solar technology and electric vehicles. With half of their drill results yet to be published, Dolly Varden’s future looks bright, as the company continues to uncover rich silver and gold resources, positioning itself as a major score to investors.
Visit the company’s website https://DollyVardenSilver.com
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***Disclaimer This interview is sponsored by Dolly Varden Silver, and Financial Survival Network has received payment to conduct this interview. The information provided in this video is intended for informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial advice, investment advice, or a recommendation to buy or sell any securities. While we strive to ensure the accuracy of the information presented, we make no guarantees or representations as to its completeness, accuracy, or reliability. Viewers are strongly advised to conduct their own research, carefully review the information presented, and consult with professional investment advisors and financial counselors before making any investment decisions. The insights shared in this video are based on the perspectives and opinions of the interview participants and should be used at your own risk.
I'll be honest with you, I was a little nervous, I was a little nervous because, you know, we were setting the bar so high with the results we were coming out with and you want to, you know, you want to be increasing and increasing and increasing and I thought how do we do this? And the results that we put out yesterday, we're getting one ounce gold over 12, 13 meters, we're getting 30 meters of, you know, a third of an ounce, you know, it's, it's just incredible numbers. The Financial Survival Network. Now more than ever. The Financial Survival Network. And welcome. This is Financial Survival Network. I am your host, Carrie Lutz, major sponsor update from Sean Koon Koon, CEO of Dolly Borden and Silver. I mean, Sean, you've got, you've been like on a high for months here with these drill results. Harry, it actually feels like four years really, you know, it was in year one, I thought, wow, fantastic. And then there was this expectation to try to live up to the first year's results. And then it was like, it was almost like relief when year two's results were really good. And then by year three, I thought, ah, there's no way we can keep up on this trajectory. And we did. And then, um, and then this year, like, you know, it started in June, um, and I want to take you back to the drill program. There was three goals of the drill program. Goal number one was to try to find new veins outside of the resource, right? And when we came out of the gate, I thought, Oh, wow, here we are again, you know, right in the beginning innings of the drill program, we are having success. We come came up with big numbers at the news vein at the chance vein. So what we were showing there, Carrie as Dolly Varden has got this rich history, you know, rich production, rich, a silver mine in the British Empire, Canada's third largest silver producer. And we were really trying to show that this project could expand into new discoveries. And that's what the June drill results were all about. So I thought fantastic. And then when we went into this wolf deposit, this is where we use the directional drilling. And we were, it looks like this deposits getting wider. It's swelling as we get deeper and the grades are doubling. You know, we're seeing those three 400 gram per ton, silver grades go to five, six, even a kilo, a kilo silver over 10 meters. So, you know, we were hitting the new veins, we were expanding wolf and then home steak. And I was, I'll be honest with you, I was a little nervous, so I was a little nervous because, you know, again, you know, we were setting the buy so saying the bar so high with the results we were coming out with. And you want to keep, you know, you want to be increasing and increasing and increasing. And I thought, how do we do this? And then boom, the numbers that we had exceeded my expectations. This is starting to remind me of new months, Bruce Jack mine, you know, there are some 300,000 ounces of 10 gram gold material just north of our property and the results that we put out yesterday, where we're getting one ounce gold over 12, 13 meters. We're getting 30 meters of, you know, a third of an ounce. You know, it's, it's just incredible numbers and, and we've really identified now the super high grade corridor of both silver and now silver gold and gold mineralization. So, going back to home steak, that was an acquisition that you did several years ago. And at the time, you know, the market was in the dull drums. The price of gold hadn't broken out yet. The price of silver hadn't and yet there was still synergy there and, and the share price held up even after the acquisition, which showed the market was confident. So obviously you'd never know till you drill there, but it's turning out that this acquisition kind of a master stroke. What's interesting when I first got into Dolly, and this is before I signed up a CEO, I actually called the chairman of what was then called Orrin Resources, which is now called Fury Goldmites. And I called Ivan Babic, who's now subsequently come on as an advisor to Dolly. And I said, Ivan, you know, is there a deal to be done here? Like, you know, I was, I was an outsider looking in this, this area in Northwest BC and I was looking at this area, looking at Bruce Jack, Eskey, Creek and Premier. And I thought this Dolly of Art, it looks like it could be the next big one in the golden triangle. And I thought, well, we don't even need to find it. It's already there. We just need to put it together. We need to marry it together with this homesick deposit. So I called up Ivan and it was October 2019. And I said, Ivan, is there a deal to do here? And he goes, yeah, there is. And it took us some time and it took us, you know, some negotiating. It actually carried, took two years. It took two years for us to get to know each other and to, to current, you know, advance our businesses and, and then we, we consummated the deal. I want to say it was, we announced it December of 2021. We completed it in the spring of 2022 and I'm, I'm very conservative. So the approach I took was what if it's not there? Because these are resource estimates, right? These aren't proven improbable reserves that you're mining. These are resource estimates. So I said to myself, let's assume only 25% of it's there. And using that assumption, it was still wildly synergistic. And so here we are a couple of years later. And today I now have the confidence because of the drilling that we've done, we now have the confidence that we believe that both the grade and the continuity is there. And the grades we think we're understated. We think, and you look at some of the results that we've put up from Holstake, they've been spectacular. The best drill results that have come out of the Golden Triangle in 2022 and 2023 have been Dolly Varden. And if you look at the results that were posted in the first half of 2024, Dolly Varden. So three years in a row, Dolly Varden has reigned supreme in the Golden Triangle. And it's why the share price for investors who got behind me on day one, it's why they're up 700% despite the fact that the majority of the last five years, four and a half years, the majority that we spent in a bear market up until April of this year, you know, silver was sub $25. Right. And now it hit 35 gold just last week, hit 2,800 and the economics. And I got to believe the outside interest in what you're doing has got to be through the roof. Well, listen, it's, I can't, you know, comment too much on what's happening in the M&A space. But what I can say is I'll cite some other deals that are happening, you know, whether it's SilverQuest being acquired, Gatos being acquired, you know, Kerry, there's only 13 producing silver companies that make up the industry. And those 13 companies are only valued at $37 billion. And you know, you look at the interest that's accumulating on us debt every day. In 13 days, it's the equivalent to the entire silver mining industry. Every 13 days, the interest on the debt surpasses the silver mining industry. So when people say, Sean, where do you feel the price of silver is going? Well, I'll answer that question when you guys stop printing, right? Sure. Sure likelihood of that happening. I wonder if in our lifetimes that'll ever occur, but the story for another day. So now you found, you found everything you were hoping for and more in home stake. What do you do for the upcoming drill program? So we have a water result still to publish from the drilling we've completed. So we completed at about 32,000 meters of drilling and about half of those meters went into the silver rich dolly side of the project and then the other half went into the silver gold rich home stake part of the project. And so we still have a lot of news to come up. Number one, number two, with carry 34 million in the bank, you know, we're in a position we're armed with next year's budget already in place. And I think that one of the reasons the stock has done pretty good this year, right? It's twice the price it was in January. One of the reasons for that is when positive things occur, when those big discoveries come out of Torbrit or Wolf or regionally or home stake, there's only one way for an investor to get exposure to this name. We're not doing a private placement. We're not doing a financing. You got to come into the open market. And so armed with 34 million in the bank with drill results pending with next year's program fully funded, it's continued growth at Dolly Varn. I was doing an investor call this morning and the investor asked me, Sean, when do you go into production? And I said, with all due respect, that's the wrong question. You know, ask me what my strategy is. Ask me what my vision is for the company and it's been what it was a number of years ago when I started, which is how big can we get this resource? You know, a resource that was valued at pennies announced on the ground five years ago that's now being valued at dollars announced on the ground today. How many hundreds of millions of ounces of silver can we calculate against that in situ or enterprise value per ounce on the ground? And today, you know, the market's giving us about a $400 million valuation Canadian. That's 20 times higher from where we started. So that strategy has paid. It's paid to drill. It's paid to acquire an unloved, underappreciated metal that's now starting to get some real price discovery. Yeah. Well, you know, they say in the market, every dog has its day, not that I would ever view silver as a dog, but obviously the market did for many, many years. But when I bought my first ounce of silver back in 1999, I think I paid somewhere around five or six dollars. Now it's 35 and really resistance kind of gone mid thirties, you know, 32, 33 is support for sure, and then we're not even talking about gold. So, you know, the name Dolly Varden silver doesn't really tell the full story anymore. No, you're right. And listen, like I go back and I look at where silver was a hundred years ago, and you know, 90% of the demand for silver was jewelry or investment. You know, today that that industrial side of silver makes up about 55% of the market. So you know, I think silver in this environment where you've got, you know, the Fed easing, you've got China stimulating both the investment and growth side of silver's being, you know, that it's a two headed monster. It's money, but it's also, you know, a there is no substitute for it. There's no substitute for it and solar, you know, it's got a big component in EVs. And you know, the reality is, Carrie, we're not lining more of the stuff, you know, we're losing two percent a year on the production side. And we've lost about 50% compared to where we were a decade ago. So silver production is dropping off. We're down to only producing 800 million ounces a year as an industry. And we're only recycling another 150 on top of that. So it's, it's a sub billion else market that's got real demand, not the reported demand, but the real demand is about 50% higher than that. And that was during the dog days of silver, right? That was when it was in a bear. I think it's, I think we're about, we're on the verge of an exponential move. I'm up here in Canada. So we, we call these charts hockey stick charts because it's here. It goes there. And that's, and that's what I think we're on the verge of shot, you know, I'm just looking at my notes. When we talked last few months back, gold was right around 2,400 silver was approaching 30 bucks. It just couldn't get past that $30 it'd go over and then it immediately would pull back over the next couple of months into the upper 20s. Now here we are, like I said, $2,800 and 35, and it seems like the party's just getting started. Yeah. And you know, like we've got a shareholder in Eric Sprott that owns about 10% of the company that was instrumental in leading a couple of financings for us. We raised about $47 million this year and Eric led both those deals. And Eric talks about wanting to be one of the first people to a party, you know, not not feeling uncomfortable being early, but making sure that you're gone before it ends. And so, you know, Eric's got a, one of his advisors, Bob Thompson at Raymond James has got something that he refers to as the mining clock. And you know, you know, the start, you know, the clock at one o'clock and, you know, the end of the party is a midnight, you know, Bob thinks on the precious metal side, the last time I talked to him that we're at maybe six or seven o'clock. So we still got a long ways to go. And you know, my experience in these markets is most of the gains occur in the last few hours. And so, you know, I just think we haven't even seen a warm up. Take me when Silver's through 50, I believe in triple digits over and again, and it's not, it's not a crazy idea when you've got one central bank on a debt servicing, you know, you got a government that's debt servicing it three billion a day, the interest. It's insane. It's nuts. Yeah. Well, hey, in a market where there's a lot of questionable companies out there, Dolly Varden definitely shines, shines through as the real deal. So appreciate you coming on the show as always shot. And you want to visit dollyvarden silver dot com, sign up for notifications because with half their drill results are so still pending. I'm sure there's going to be a lot of the interesting results being released in the coming weeks ahead ticker symbols in the U S D L L F. And of course, in Canada D V shot always a pleasure. Talk to you soon. Barry, thanks for having me on all the best, especially tonight with the election. The financial survival network. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right. All right.
