Earnings Call - SOLARIS RESOURCES INC

Welcome to Nordic Suns and Mines. I'm joined by Matthew Roblinson, CEO of Solaris Resources. Matt, welcome. Thank you very much for having me. Yeah, so how has it been so far? Yeah, it's been great. I think the attendance is fantastic. It's my first time to Sweden and what a wonderful place Stockholm is, so it's great to be here. I hope you're coming back next year. Could you give us a brief introduction to Solaris' resources and the Wurinsa project? Sure, I think Solaris's principal asset is the Wurensa project located in the southeastern corridor of Ecuador, very close to the Mirador and Fruta del Norte mines, two large producing mines in the country today. The delivery of the pre-feasibility study in November of 2025 really did highlight the multi-generational facets of this global scale project. It's tier one qualities driving significant free cash generation to shareholders over a significant life of mine. We talked to 5.8 billion tons of resource today, a 55-year-plus life of mine. So again, very unique from that perspective. Operationally, it's a very simple design. It's a large open pit mine, conventional processing, 165,000 ton a day concentrator. So I think that delivers good value going forward. And simplicity is a very key part of this project. From the perspective of the equity stack, we also do not have any attachments to a major in our equity stack, which provides us with good strategic flexibility as we look towards the future of funding this project. Additionally, the social license is something very important to ourselves. You know, the Social License, we've put over $350 million into the ground here over a long period of time. Social Licence is certainly something that we focused on. And I think that broad acceptance is very telling in terms of our success, you know, as to where we are to date. This is a near-term project. We are fully financed ultimately to getting to a funding, fully FID decision at the back end of 2027. We'll have the project fully permitted ultimately in the first half of 20 27. And that's very exciting for the world of copper ultimately. So certainly we have a proposition here that is very unique in terms of delivery. And on top of that, we also have four other assets outside of Orinza in Solaris Resources. Two in Peru, one polymetallic, Paco Orco, one large porphyry, Capricho. We have a joint venture with TEC, La Verde, 6040 in our favor. And then we have an early stage asset in Chile. So we have a encompassing portfolio here that will drive forward. And what we do with the spin-out portfolio, there is strategic flexibility. we'll start some drilling works on those Peruvian assets in the early part of 2027 and certainly that could be spun out to shareholders at the right time driving significant further value for our shareholders. Good, good, good. But if you look back at the progress you've made over the past year what would you say has been the most important developments? Yeah I think we you know socially we've made some significant inroads in terms of where we are from a project standpoint we're going through the free prior informed consultation process with the government right now, the long-term collective agreement and relocation agreements being worked on between the company and almost getting close to a crystallization with the company and the host communities. So that's very exciting. Permits, we've got the technical approval of the EIA in Q1 of 2026 this year that highlights the near-term status of this project in advancing the permitting side. The last of the permits is really focused on tailings, water and energy and some regulatory permits, as well as finalization of the exploitation contract between ourselves and the state. But this is very near term. I think those advancements for the project are very strategic. We delivered the pre-feasibility study in November of 2025, again, highlighting the quality of this asset. Asenco, Knight Peacehold and AMC delivered those studies. Very, very credible providers of studies. They'll continue through to the FS. And the FS is in progress and delivered should be delivered in h1 of 2027 full speed full speed ahead yeah good good well we look at borinza again what are the most important steps you need to take from here towards the construction decision yeah i think remain what remains is effectively as i mentioned from a permitting standpoint we've got those three major permits that need to be obviously ticked off I think post the social license being accepted, those permits will fall into place naturally. And that's a very exciting stage for the project. We are working in parallel from a financing standpoint in looking at different solutions for the project. There's a standalone solution that obviously we look at and very intent on driving that forward. You know, we have a very strong byproduct credit that comes from MOLLE, gold and silver. we can obviously stream the precious metal from the deposit royal gold you know we we did a small stream at the back at concluded that in may of 2025 where we streamed 12 percent of the gold content price six percent of it but we would look to finance the project through a combination of potentially streaming the byproducts yeah plus the some project level debt ultimately that comes in EPC, EPCM type structures. We've also seen government debt looking from the supply chain, independence of supply chain perspective. That critical path is something very, very nuanced in the world today and a path that we could travel down as well. In combination with looking at partnerships as well, partnerships doesn't just come from a financial perspective. It's got to come with expertise. It's got to come with the right caliber of partner and the right impetus to move it forward as well. Okay. For investors who may be less familiar with Ecuador, how would you describe the country as a mining country? Well, from an extractive perspective, it's been an extractivist country for a very long period of time, especially in the oil and gas space. From a mining perspective, as I highlighted, you've got two very well-advanced and two premium mines in the country. Fruta del Norte, which is a premium gold asset, $20 billion market cap, single asset play, which are 70 kilometers away from ourselves. Mirador is the Tongling operation, about 40 kilometers from ourselves, so very well accustomed to mining in the southeastern corridor of Ecuador. It's a very rural part of the country today. You don't deal with tremendous amount of communities, and mining is understood. The left, the central, and the right governments have all been very supportive of mining over the tenor that mining has been around in the country. Today, the Noboa government is very focused on it. It's the third largest export pillar today and certainly a big driver of economic growth that comes from mining. It is a USD-denominated currency as well. You could have good long-term protection agreements in place, which is very important for investors and ourselves as we move the project forward. And certainly we've seen great precedent in the extractive industry, just on the oil and gas, plus the mining side of great successes in the country. The geological profile of Ecuador is absolutely profound. It's something very unique. It extends all the way from Chile, Peru, up through Ecuador and into Colombia. So this is a very profound district. And I think the world of future large-scale porphyry deposits lie within Ecuador. There's some significant global deposits that are in Ecuador today and being advanced. That sounds interesting. But we look at the coming news flow to summarize what could investors expect to see. Yeah, from a news flow perspective, it's really, you know, kind of four big buckets that I talked to. It's Warrinza and the de-risking merits of Warrina. It's becoming reality. And I think that's very, very clear near term. You know, the step out opportunities beyond Warrinsa itself. We own 260 square kilometers of land, as I mentioned, plus a significant option agreement package with the government NME. So we will continue to look at opportunities for exploration beyond Warrinster itself. We've been doing a lot of work on the southeastern part of the tenements, the Tinky concessions. There's a big potassic alteration there that resembles a large porphyry. So we're waiting for the drill permits. We'll start to drill there relatively shortly. That could be game-changing in terms of a large-scale porphyry system that resembles Warrinza. And then you've got the third pillar, which is really around the non-core portfolio. As I mentioned, we'll advance those and potentially spin those out at the right time. That's tremendous value for shareholders, which has not encompassed in the Solaris stock today. So again, that is very exciting. And beyond that, you've Got the partnership type of model that as we continue to de-risk the project, so we could look at partnership and bringing in the right partners at the right time could be highly value-accretive to our shareholders. Good, good. Matt, I wish you good luck and thank you for coming here and I hope I see you next year. Thank you very much. I appreciate the time. Bye. Thank you.