First Majestic Silver Corp. (AG) Q3 2014 Earnings Report, Transcript and Summary

Welcome to the First Majestic Silver Third Quarter 2014 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, all participants are in listen-only mode and the conference is being recorded. After the presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask question. [Operator Instructions]. At this time, I would like to turn the conference over to Keith Neumeyer, President and CEO for First Majestic Silver. Please go ahead.

Thank you, and welcome to all of you who decided to join us this morning. As many of you know we don’t normally have quarterly conference calls. We generally do two calls a year, a mid-year one and one to cover the year-end results. Due to the current market activities and the amount of emails and questions we’re getting about the company I decided that we would have this conference call. So on the call -- I’m actually in Switzerland right now, and in Vancouver we have Ray Polman, our CFO, on the line. We’ve also got, from Durango, Salvador Garcia, our Chief Operating Officer; we also have, in Vancouver, Todd Anthony, our Vice President of Investor Relations; and we have Connie Lillico, our Corporate Secretary who is also in Vancouver. And I’m just going to pass this call quickly over to Connie just to talk about our disclaimer. Go ahead, Connie.

Thanks, Keith. Prior to us beginning today, I'll read our disclaimer and forward-looking statement. Certain statements contained in this conference call regarding the company and its operations constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 and Section 21E of the United States Securities Exchange Act of 1934 as amended. All statements that are not historical facts, including without limitation, statements regarding future estimate, plans, objectives, assumptions or expectations of future performance constitute forward-looking statements. We caution you that such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results and future events to differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Such risks and uncertainties include fluctuations in precious metal prices; unpredictable results of exploration activities; uncertainties inherent in the estimation of mineral reserves and resources; fluctuations in the cost of goods and services; problems associated with exploration and mining operations; changes in legal, social or political conditions in the jurisdictions where the company operates; lack of appropriate funding and other risk factors as discussed in the company's filings with the Canadian Securities regulatory agencies. Resources and production goals and forecasts may be based on data insufficient to support them. The company expressly disclaims any obligation to update any forward-looking statements. Back to you, Keith.

Okay, well thanks, Connie. Well Q3 I’m not going to go over the whole news release as I’m sure most of you have read it already and if you haven’t you are welcome to ask questions at the end of this, my presentation, but Q3 was not a particularly good quarter. We had a number of things occurring which we tried to outline in the news release the best as we could. We hopefully covered it clearly. I’m just going to cover couple of highlights. We did lose about 400,000 ounces of production in Q3 unfortunately due to weather problems. We had a lightning strike at Del Toro which took out two generators which caused a reduction of production there for a period of three weeks. We had a hurricane off of west coast of Mexico in the Pacific Ocean that brought in a very severe rain to San Martin and we also had very heavy rain off the Gulf of Mexico where La Encantada is close to and it was also affected by heavy rains. And just to explain what happens in this type of environment; it doesn’t happen every year, its seen in every two to three years there’s major storm in this part of the world, but the ore gets extremely whacked and it clogs up the pipes and it really slows down production and it just causes lot of problems in mold[ph]. So that happened at three of our operations, fortunately two of five mines; but three were affected by weather in the third quarter. We also did another round of layoffs and having made quite clear to our shareholders or at least I hope we made it clear to our shareholders that we’ve been looking to reduce cost as best we can and we were at the peak of 4900 employees back in January, 2013. Now we’ve gotten four cuts and we did another cut in August, 2014 of 300 workers which cost us $800,000 in severance which obviously goes right to our cost and it’s a one-time expense obviously but it still does impact our cost in that quarter. That won't obviously affect us going forward. We also did have the change of mine plans as all mining companies are doing, we are not in the days anymore where we [indiscernible] silver and we can afford to mine 100 grams silver, which we could, but we really need to watch our head grades and we need to keep our head grades up as much as possible and that’s causing us to change some of our mining methods. And the two mines that have been mostly affected are the La Encantada and La Guitarra mine. So they did have higher cost in the quarter. And you will see going forward that the grades will be more consistent, or hopefully will be more consistent and things will be improving there. Also, I think shareholders should be aware and investors should be aware that Q3 is really the last quarter of our spend. We have been expanding quite quickly and, as many of you know, First Majestic has been in a high growth phase for the last three years and we have been growing quite rapidly and spending quite a lot of money on expansions. And when the metal prices started to fall dramatically we had to change the business quite a lot and it took time to do that and we are still working on efficiencies and still working on improving the ways we do things but Q3 rates with the last quarter that we had our big capital expenditure about a hook up of Del Toro to the power line, which will help us obviously in Q4. And other thing that shareholders and investors should be aware is going back to Q2, it looked to us that the metal price is going to hold in the $20 to $21 range and we are learning to work in that environment and we are profitable in that environment and we weren’t expecting to see silver at $16 an ounce. Now that it is there we have to do further cuts and then further changes to business to bring our cost in line with the current metal prices. And it does take time, it doesn't happen overnight and there is the delay. And you will see our costs improving over the next couple of quarters and our focus is very much improving -- or in producing profitable ounces. Some of things to look forward to in Q4, the Del Toro power line obviously, as most of you probably know, was hooked up on September 29. I'm not going to give you any numbers right now. I can tell you that it's having a very nice impact on our costs at Del Toro as expected. So we are looking to foresee nice cost reduction in Del Toro in Q4 going forward. We also, as we said in our news release, we have signed a new contract for cyanide in August of this year. We received delivery through September. We are also using some of the -- looked upon the older higher cost inventory so we are blending right now and as of Q1 of 2015, we would be using 100% of the lower cost product. So we will see cost improvements in Q4 to Q1. Also we are looking -- our staff as I mentioned earlier will affect us in Q4 and we hope to see higher production in Q4 as well. On Q4, we will see more capital being invested in Q4 as everything is not coming to an end as I mentioned in Q3. Some things in 2013, as everyone knows we put out our guidance for 2015 in January and we will do that again with some details on a very high level look at 2015. Again, the focus is producing proper answers by that current metal price is in the -- we think we can get there and we’re pretty confident that we’ll (inaudible) from that over the next couple of quarters. A couple of areas lower development cost which we are witnessing. We saw development costs getting up to a peak of $1,800 a ton; we are expecting those development cost to be down to $1,100 a ton for 2015. We continued our chemical cost reduction with the reduction in oil price, also very much lower capital investments in 2015, very likely that we will be looking at new staff cuts. I'm not sure how many followers or investors know, but we did put a Q in place in January, 2013. We did install the warehouse module and the maintenance module in 2014, installing the human resources module after January 1, 2015 and that's going to allow us to get deep into our staffing and allow us to take further cuts than we have made previously. It’s an area of focus at the moment. In other areas they have contactors. As many people know, the mining industry uses or tends to use outside contractors for some of the specific type of work it does, but we are trying to bring as much work in-house. And we are finding over the last couple of quarters by doing that and it's actually quite a system that's assisting us and that's clearly a big focus of ours and that continued to be a big focus for a couple of quarters. So we do expect that will assist us in reducing our costs as we’re going forward. So that's really it. So if anyone has questions please direct it to us and we would be happy to answer any questions.

We will now being the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. The first question is from Mike Parkin of Desjardins. Please go ahead.

Hi guys, just a couple of questions. You’ve mentioned that your cyanide costs have come down quite a bit. Can you give us a sense of like what percent of your overall operating costs are cyanide? And also with diesel prices coming off substantially, I was wondering if we could get a sense of what your percent cost budgeted for 2014 were related to the diesel price?

Yes, Mike, and before I pass this over to Ray, but just a couple of high level comments. The diesel in Mexico or oil and gas or diesel and gasoline in Mexico if we doesn't follow exactly the oil prices so there is a delay, it’s a fixed rates that has been told by the government. So that government has been reducing their subsidy, which is increasing the price of diesel in Mexico for the last couple of years. And I'm not expecting it to stop, which is one good thing, but to see that reduction is another thing altogether, but I think that lot of the inputs that we use are energy related other than diesel itself, I think there would be other inputs that affected by oil prices. And going to cyanide, cyanide itself depending on the operation it is not a huge contributor to total cost, but the actual reduction in cyanide from August to October is 25%. So it does that up. We are looking at reducing at everything, our cost structure and if we can a $0.01 her or $0.02 there it makes, the difference and these are the kinds of costs measures that will help us get our cost in line. Ray, do you have any other comment?

No. Just to add to that, Keith, cyanide I think this is roughly in the fourth quarter we expect to be somewhere around 20% reduction. And of the total cost it's about 4% of the total production cost.

All right. Thanks guys.

Thanks Mike. I see there is lot of other people queuing on. I hope there is more questions than just couple.

The next question is from Henk Krasenberg of European Gold Center. Please go ahead.

And about your decision to suspend some of our sales, when that decision came I really thought that was a sign of entrepreneurialship. However, with the markets as they went, they made -- that decision may not be applauded by some, so that's easy in hindsight. Now, you said that you will sell those 900 close to a million ounces of silver before year end. Is that a fact or is there a possibility that you carry that into the New Year in anticipation of probably higher prices?

Thanks, Henk, for the question. And one think I think is important to note here is that we always try to sell, it’s not unusual. Every sell that we make we try to take advantage of spike in the metal price. And we're running a business and our job is to produce metal and sell the metal and we have shareholders around the world that expect that we make a profit and measured by our profit ultimately. And one day we hope to pay a dividend as well and obviously that requires profit. So -- but in the times of distress in the market where the metal drop 19% in one quarter, I think it's prudent to hold back production. We did it then and we've done it before and we'll do it again in the future, but predicting when these occurrences happen is difficult and too natural to predict. I would love to see silver at higher that even today and we don't have to have this conversation. But we are in a very distressed time and very distressed trend. The margins right now are quite thin, $16 silver the company is not making, and know there’s not money either. So we ultimately have to protect our shareholders, we have to protect our employees, we have to protect our assets and we have to protect the company. So that's the number one job of management and that takes priority over it. So we will do the best we can when it comes to production, but these are other things to protect as well.

Okay. And I’ll listen back to your answer your -- on the other side your website, because you sound like you're talking in the bucket but of course, I'm on the other side of the world. I'll catch your answer later.

Okay. Thanks Henk.

Oh, the next question is from Scott Morrison of Dundee Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Hi, everyone. Thanks for taking my question. I guess just looking forward to early next year and I guess later this year when you're doing your reserve updates. Do you have a silver price in mind for the reserve pricing?

Scott, that determination is not complete yet, we haven't made that determination yet. We -- a month ago I could have told you the number quite clearly and I would give you an answer but based on the market activity over the last couple of weeks we may have to check these and change the price what we decided a couple of weeks ago. So I just don't want to throw the number right now because we haven't decided internally what that number is going to be.

Okay. And then, moving on to cost, have you guys sat down with any of the labor unions and have you guys been able to make any progress potentially lower in costs with those contracts?

I don't want to get any specifics on that either but I can tell you that there are a discussion going on internally on that exact topic. We do have some plans that we're working on in order to address that issue. But I just don't want to get interested with this right now on that.

Okay. And then, lastly, on development, how far ahead of you or how far ahead are you in terms of months are you from most of your mines right now?

The mandate is to get the all mines down the three times. We have a couple of mines that are currently over that and those mines are getting less investment in development right now. But we feel that we've been running efficiently three months ahead for each mine.

All right. And that's it for me. Thanks for taking my questions.

Great. Thanks Scott.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from [Jim Bowen] [ph] Ethel Merman Asset Management. Please go ahead.

Thank you for taking my question. There appears to be a huge disconnect between the physical market and the paper market. You read stories saying that the U.S. man has all sold out of Silver Eagles and yet the paper market, the price keeps on going down. Do you see anything in the near-term that can cause that to change?

Well, we can write a book on that I think. But I think it's quite clear what's happening at least in my mind that’s clear what's happening. You've got very concentrated trade going on where you got most of the large funds around the world on one side of the trade that trade is basically buy the U.S dollar, buy the real estate, buy U.S. stock market. And they've been doing quiet well, doing that. That's been a great trade. And the dollar is up, it's up, real state price in United States are up. The funds that have traded that have been on that trade for the last two years have done exceedingly well and have made gazillion dollars. And when is that trade going to end? Well, I don't know when the trade is going to end. The early -- is it going to be the collapse of dollar other or it's going to be some kind of catastrophic event, I don't know. I look at this part as very similar to the 2000 to 2002, the acid bubble cracked and the load sector in 1998 completed disintegrated. It was a pretty difficult sector similar to what is it today except today it’d be more negative at least that could become 1998 or 2002, you can still (inaudible) but it was tough but you can still kind of manage. Today, it's just so much negative in growth sector it's ridiculous. But nevertheless, it's almost identical situation where you've got a segment of the market doing extremely well and many other segments, including the (inaudible) or not doing well at all. So this is going to take some sense occurs and the institutions around the world, but I know who all else would like to do in 2002, will wake up and say we need to only allow that and we only stock a reason by and earning a just a bunch of what we didn't planned. We really have no real value driven and we need be buying other stuff and that will happen and the trade will swing and then all of a sudden people will be looking through 2014, 2015 as they do I wish I was buying, I was supposed to get $5 or $6 and they’re going to lift the trade. But it takes a lot of guts to buy the bottle if anything. And I'm absolutely certain that we’re very close to the bottom. I think there is a lot of tax off selling going on as well and some test in the equities. And I think there is a bunch of unwinding that’s going on in the precious metal sector as well, which is also adding to some of the volatility. But I think over the next months I think we will see an end to it. And I could call it -- I’d be looking to get $1000 but this time next year we’ll see much higher metal prices than we currently are trading.

Do you think there is a risk that some of the metal exchanges could actually run out of the metal?

Well, the problem is maybe Todd knows exactly because he is on the line with us. But, I think it’s something like 1% or 2% or 3% of our contracts -- metal contracts actually is calls to delivery. So you got marketing cost, a billion ounces of silver trading in paper a day and you’ve only got 800 million ounces silver supplies in the physical product side mining companies on an annual basis, so the leverage is like 400 to 1, it’s just ridiculous.

Thank you.

It’s very -- I wish the regulators, well that’s not probably not going to happen because the regulators are run by the bank, but those regulators really need to step in and force the exchange to use or release more leverage.

I agree with you and its just to me its very disturbing when you see like reports that one seller selling, this is gold 400 tons of gold in one trade I mean that’s not a seller who is out to get the best price.

No, it’s right. No, its concentrated selling purposely they’re selling in the market. And all these guys get together and they play these games and the regulator stand aside and let them do it and that’s the market we’re in and one way they will be on the other side. Right now they are on the side of – the main surprise, when this all turns around they will be on the other side and they’ll be pushing this at least I am pretty confident they will be pushing the prices and they are pushing like they’re suppressing the prices today.

Thank you very much.

The next question is from Graeme Jennings of Cormark Securities. Please go ahead.

Hey, guys thanks for taking my call. So I have a question, couple of questions first around Del Toro or just overall all in constant, last quarter we got in around just under $20 and the real outlier here, I see is basically Del Toro around 25. I mean La Encantada obviously was a bit higher and we know the reasons for that La Parrilla came in quite nicely, but Del Toro, the question is, can we got those costs down to reasonable level, I know this power lines come in but what’s your goal for all in cost save for next year for Del Toro?

Well, we have in the guidance out Graeme for 2015. But, we know the issue obviously and there is authorization that’s required Del Toro has some specific issues in Q3. So I don’t really think you can use Q3 as a guidance going forward, cost of Del Toro have been gradually increasing as a result of all the changes that were made. You have to remember that we made a numbers of changes at the middle as a result about changing the whole process there from running two [indiscernible] separately versus running as in through flotation and in the third quarter we decided to put the two bar mills [indiscernible] La Parrilla and changing the forming. And then we have the lightning strike and then we also have lower grade and so there is a series of events that happened at Del Toro in Q3 is like a perfect storm. So I really think it would be extremely unfair to use Q3 as a go forward measurement. I would suggest and ask you at the same time to wait for Q4 and I think Q4 will be a better guideline of what you can see going forward. And also the result of some of the things that we’re doing on the ground at Del Toro in Q4 would probably more equipped to answer some of those questions you’ve got.

But you are on track this year per se 16 million sustaining at Del Toro, do you know if that’s a, would that be a good go ahead numbers – on that business sustaining for next year or again do you just obviously wait for Q4?

You mean averaging 2014?

Yes, like I think 2014 somewhere around 16?

No, certainly that’s high, I think its – I think that’s – Del Toro is a new mine and its like any new mine there is a lots of stuff that you can do there and we are not completing the investment not completing all the development cost in place. Not finishing the grinding and crushing area that was the decision we made. I think is the right decision to take $7 million by doing it but it kind of stopped and attracted at the same time and that required us to have to made some changes to the whole go forward plan of Del Toro and that’s really taking us some time to do it. So but I think that, like I’d said you need to look at Q4 and you should have this as a basis going forward and we know the environment and we’re not in the business producing unprofitable ounces so we will be producing profitable ounce at Del Toro

Then at La Parrilla we saw a little jump up in development capital, is there, is that expected to be repeated, is there – are you looking to spend a bit more money there with the success you’ve had?

Well, we’re just in 2015 budgeting now, Ray do you know, I actually don’t know I didn’t know that – make a bump up in that, can you answer that Ray?

I think what we’re looking at is a little bit more of investment in mining equipment at that time and mining equipment tends to be a bit lumpy up and down. So I don’t think that’s something that will be continued but you probably see that showing up in the third quarter.

Okay. And then finally at San Martin, I mean we saw some great grades there and once again I know I'm maybe asking this quarterly can we see the – these grades to hold on going forward?

San Martin is having great couple of months and we’re expecting that to continue it had record quarter in Q3 and we’re expecting this thing on a record quarter in Q4. The whole area we developed is, this discover was made in 2009 and we came -- finally came out of course in 2012 the 43-101 which gave ten years of reserves in this new area, [Vitola] [ph] area and we just got it into production this year its only grinding 100% in the last quarter. So this area is much higher grade and we’re going to expect that going forward for the next several years.

Okay, great. Well, thanks guys.

Yes. Okay. Thanks Graeme.

The next question is from [Andy Shoppick] [ph] a private investor. Please go ahead.

Thanks good morning. Keith, I think you correctly absorbed and commented that some of the pressure we’re seeing on these mining stocks is related to tax flow selling unfortunately that particular pressure may continue for another several weeks independent of the trend in any metals prices. I am wondering if you care to comment at this time give us any update on the stock buyback authorization that’s in place and as you said it takes a lot of guts to buy a low and just wondering how you feel about the whole stock buyback program and your intentions going forward.

Thanks Andy. Well, I wish I had $250 million in the bank because if we did I can tell you that we’d be way more fresh of buying stock back. We are in precarious times and the margins are skinny and profits aren’t great and then treasury is really the most important thing in our business and we really got to look at our treasury. We got to watch our treasury, we got to really start seeing treasury grow. We just – come after three years of very substantial investments and even though we've been profitable over most of the quarter except for this last quarter, we still been burning cash even though we've been profitable over that period. So not just a result of our investment in expansion. So in big favor to buyback stock, we did buyback some stock in Q3, I think may be Todd or Ray can sort that numbers out, I think we got 30,000 or 40,000 shares. We've been on the bid over the last couple of weeks. I think that we bought something in the order of 30,000 shares in the last three weeks. We’ve stored this in the system right now under the pre-text, we will buy stock as the stock is under further pressure but it’s a fine line, I want to buy stock, want to buy more stock but everything can’t really need the treasury grow. I want to see the bank account higher at the end of this year than we currently have and it’s a bit of a gaggling act.

Understood and I agree with your response. Thanks Keith.

Okay. Thanks Andy.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from Howard Flinker of Flinker & Company. Please go ahead. Howard Flinker - Flinker & Company: Hello Keith, hello Todd.

Hi. Howard Flinker - Flinker & Company: Do you hear of any lead zinc silver mines or any copper silver mines in Mexico planning to shut?

No, not yet. I think they’re one shut, maybe Todd knows better than I do I think a silver mine is shut down a while ago about a year ago approve the [indiscernible] mines to shutdown last week a silver mine, a privately owned silver shut down. Howard Flinker - Flinker & Company: In Peru you think?

It’s a privately owned silver mine in Peru that’s just got shutdown last week. Howard Flinker - Flinker & Company: Okay – it will happen, they don’t have endless money and some will have to shut. And second as to regulators if you’re asking to intrude now they’ll impede you on the way out keep them out, they’ll hinder you more on the way out then they’ll hurt by upstanding now. We know regulators once they’re in office find a reason to exercise their power and they can only hurt you on the way out. Even though we’d like them to somehow to put a flow under the market, the expense on the way up would be much greater than any savings now. So that was my comment about regulators.

Specifically what you’re referring to Howard? Howard Flinker - Flinker & Company: Well, you said if the regulators would get in and somehow change the rules between trading paper silver and physical silver.

All right. Howard Flinker - Flinker & Company: If they take actions now, you can be sure they’ll take actions that will be painful, not painful expensive on the way out. Just keep them out don’t encourage them to come. That’s my comment.

I learned a lot in time as we can’t rely on government we have to run our business and – we've learned to run the business in different environment and unfortunately in circumstances we’re a very nimble company sometimes the pay book may changes and we’re very capable group of people and we can make the change when necessary. Howard Flinker - Flinker & Company: These pressures that market will take care of itself demand will rise and one way or another supplier will refer.

Yes. Well, thanks Howard. I appreciate it. Howard Flinker - Flinker & Company: Sure.

The next question is from Jerry Carleton of Carleton Enterprises. Please go ahead.

Hey Keith, got a question are you giving any thoughts in maybe selling your zinc forward?

I didn’t hear your voice for long Jerry, where have you been?

Well, I tried to communicate but putting out fires of gasoline there, you need t upgrade, so do you think about selling any of the zinc forward?

We thought 40% of the zinc sold is 102 I believe, we received more. But the zinc fundamentals actually are looking quite good. You got over 10% of the supply of zinc coming offline in 2015. We've got a 300,000 tons of zinc con coming off Ireland in July. You got 800,000 tons of largest zinc mine in the world in Australia coming offline in November of next year. And that's -- even though there is a surpluses in zinc con side on the market right now – of course, sure there is. But 2016 looked really exciting for zinc. Well, we are – sold 40%, Ray, could correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I'll be in the middle of 2017, 102 I believe.

All right. I mean and I agree with you on the zinc part of it, okay. But at some point, selling the zinc might be a way to generate more money to buy shares back because probably nothing cheaper than your share price at this point?

Yes. Like -- I read -- you read the same stuff I read, do you see the Wall Street look like the [indiscernible] for example, they've been -- I forget and I read the just a couple of these. I think they spent $35 billion in the last three years, they are selling buying back stock. And -- of course its money, but that is huge debt on the back that now that they are going to contend with. And I'm not sure if its -- I know it's a hedge and it is not a true -- it's not truly earned money as you got another promise against it. But, you still got a negative liability in the balance sheet and I'm not sure if that's the right thing to do.

Well, I would never tell you to take debt to buy the stock back, that's for sure. And you're absolutely right. I think share at some point need the correction in the big market at least people are going to be pretty tired have to stock back. So all right. Just a thought again. Why have been this long enough, they deep in here, we will take it day-by-day and then market will take care of itself. So thank you for your time.

We hope so. And thanks Jerry.

Thanks. Bye-Bye.

Okay. Bye.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from [Curt Dealer] [ph] a Private Investor. Please go ahead.

All right. Yes. If I heard you correctly, you had -- when silver prices were at higher level, you had a price for write down of your reserves, that's – so I'd like to know what that number is?

It's not a -- well, maybe Ray want to comment on that. But every year it happens in all mining companies that's actually oil and gas as well. You will reserve in the resource value at a certain amount as based on the -- [indiscernible] in call. You price your ounces in minorities we did last year and you come up with a value and that value goes into the balance sheet and then depreciate from that document. Going forward into profit and its enough policy, you've got to do the same thing as a year. And that number changes all the time, it can go both ways. It can go up and it comes in [indiscernible]. Ray, do you have a comment?

Well, the comment I would add Keith is, that every year we do look at the carrying value of our assets. And we determine based on the life of the assets, which is a product of the ongoing repricing of the reserves and recourses and we need to decide what we can sustain going forward. So it's a forward looking calculation based on what the general consensus is on silver prices. But at the end of every year, we do need to do a review of the carrying value of each of the assets and to reprice them. And as you mentioned before, it's a bit of an art right now. We haven't come up with that price, will be on a go forward basis. But we will be in the months to come before we approach the end of the year.

And the second question is, if in fact prices of silver stayed where they currently are, have you thought about how you would handle that number, would you shut down a mine like Del Toro?

No, we have mines had been operating for generations. And even though the quality of the mine and it does have higher cost associated with it as a result that they can be round down substantially. And we put this company together back in 2003, 2004 when silver prices were $6. And we are profitable and so was Can. And they've got a bit, if we see those prices again. But shareholders and investors need to know that there is nothing that effects cost more than price. As the prices now goes up, cost go up. As the price goes little down, cost go down. But there is a delay is that the price now been dropping rapidly that is difficulty for companies -- mining companies to cut their cost as quickly as the price we can dropping. It does happen, companies are more nimble than others and that's where that's – you just need to make that call. Some companies can have more contractors and will have long-term contracts with external groups that are able to cut cost quickly. Other companies like First Majestic have most of the talent in-house where we can change the way we to do things and many people offer or suspends certain types of investments or slow things down that other companies can do because they’re bound by contracts. So yes, cost will come down if we’re stuck at $16 silver for the next one or two years, we can be profitable at that price, but it just takes time to get there and we’re already producing profitable ounces at these prices.

Okay. Thank you very much for your answers.

The next question is from [Raghuram] [ph] a private investor. Please go ahead.

Yes, thank you. My question is related to silver demand in solar panel applications. We read a very figures like anywhere from 50 million ounces to 100 million ounces for next year demand aspect. Now my question is can you comment on that and also if it were true 100 million ounces of demand where the silver is going to come from because we see mints running out of silver coins they’re producing anywhere conservatively worldwide around 120 million ounces in just coins -- one ounce coins. Now if we add that silver demand in the solar and all together where the silver is going to come to meet all this demand, I want you to shed some light on that and anything related to demand? Thank you.

Todd you want to chat for that one.

Sure. Yes. Hi, Raghu, this is Todd Anthony. I believe the estimate there was a report from GSNS survey that stated that it takes for every one megawatt of solar capacity to build its approximately 3 million ounces of silver so you could work the numbers, there is numbers out of China how much they’re projecting to build, there is projections out of India of the gigawatts that they’re projecting to build. So the future growth for solar is still growing. I think the numbers that you stated the 50 million ounces was as of last year.

Yes, last year and for next year the projection is for 100 million ounces demand in solar panel applications.

Yes, that number might seems a little high to me to be honest, but it may be in between last year in that estimate I think.

Okay.

I think the highest numbers that we've seen now and maybe Todd can correct me but I thought it was out of Barclays, that was like 140 million ounces by 2016.

Yes. So directionally correct. So even if we are between 50 to 100 or thereabout, where the silver is going to come to meet all this demand, we don’t have coins now, the premiums have gone up everywhere as percentage wise no premium for $15 silver $3, $4 premium is too much. So will you go, how you, where is the silver coming, going to come from, there is no junk silver coming nobody is going to sell at this price, or if anybody want to sell he would have sold by now like $40, $30, $25, I don’t think people waiting to sell at $15 silver I mean junk guys they get even less price than the wholesale price. So we need to understand, I mean what do you, what is your view – there should be visible demand is certainly more than what the mine could supply it is I mean even a person like me can understand that what do you think and what are your views?

Yes, Raghu. Thanks for the question and its one of the crazy situations where the paper is in disconnect with the physical and I think there is lots of stuff around about it and I think everyone that follows this have to agree with that. You’ve got the banks and big trader, trading the paper and they don’t care for mining explore shutdown they don’t care if someone need 20 million ounces silver to produce television. They don’t care, they’re just, they’re short of particular instrument say silver and they’re trying to make money and at some point they’re going to give up and say okay, well, we've made enough money we’re not going to cover our shorts and then all of a sudden the prices goes down. Basically it’s a stiff situation because you’re physical supply outreach is the physical demand or primarily, particularly waiting for the supply. We know that market investors are right now, the numbers on the silver for 2013 was 105 million ounces short while that came amount of investment boards and where that came from. And in 2015 we likely going to be in another deficit as well particularly that’s all in metal prices the demand is sky rocketed for physical metal and I’m a big believer in supply demand even though it’s not working. But I think ultimately the supply demand coming under the silver will outweigh what's going in the paper market and it will be in overall paper market that’s my thesis. And I hope that’s true for all of our shareholders. And obviously, for us and I’m pretty sure because we are in a descent financial market. So just give us some time and I don’t know when it will happen obviously, I don’t have a crystal ball. But I think that you just got to use these opportunities as possible to take strategy for yourself and it’s hard to do when things are looking terrible.

Thank you.

Okay.

[Operator Instructions] The next question is from [Nicholas Betsky] a private investor. Please go ahead.

Yes, hello guys. I just have a quick question regarding a potential-- any potential share issuances coming up, I am just wondering if there has been any approaches by brokerages or even private investors, not private investors but say assets -- asset management funds such as broad at -- even at these prices just to raise some cash. I am wondering what you guys feel about that, and just quickly my second question is regarding those ounces that you held back, in the press release it seems to implicate that you have sold those already, can you comment on that? Thanks.

Yes, thanks Nicholas. We need to look the stock is pretty darn cheap right now and we haven’t raised money since 2009 and the stock is at $26 in 2011 and we didn’t raise any money then so I am not quite sure why we need to raise money at these prices. Anyways whether we got approached or not, I can’t really comment on that. But I can tell you it would be very unlikely we will be doing equity at these prices. Regarding the sale of silver, did take advantage of the spike in the first week of October. We held back on ounces at the end of the quarter as we made quite clear. I think silver has closed down at around 60-80 at the end of September on the spike up to 70-60 we’re able to sell back inventory for higher prices was actually expecting this silver get up into 18-80 we expect with sales quite miserably. And I got quite frankly I got a little bit nervous and I decided to liquidate our position, which it did fit and in July 22, within two days of decision liquidating that position silver prices have dropped almost $1 and so even though I hated selling them a lot of prices I am not enjoying silver at 17-29 believe me but we have a company that protects and that’s our first obligation and it turned out to be the right thing and made a little bit of extra tough and as I said earlier got a lot of questions and we take advantage of the spike on a regular basis.

Thanks.

Thanks Nicholas. It appears to be the last call.

Yes. There are no more questions at this time. I will now hand back the call to you Keith.

Great. Thank you. Yes, thank you all for hanging on for the balance of the call and if any of you have further questions please feel free to contact Todd Anthony at your convenience, he is available anytime to answer any further questions. Thank you very much.

This concludes today’s conference call. You may disconnect your lines. Thank you for participating and have a pleasant day.