Paul Andre Huet, CEO, Americas Gold and Silver Corp. [ticker: USAS]
80% of it Comes From China.
Most of the rest comes from this one mining company — and it’s incidental to the precious metals this company primarily produces.
Paul Andre Huet is CEO of Americas Gold and Silver Corp.
With over 35 years of experience in senior leadership and mining, Mr. Huet has held a multitude of prominent roles.
Previously, he was Chairman & CEO of Karora Resources Inc. from 2018 to 2024 until its merger with Westgold Resources.
Prior to that he was President, Chief Executive Officer and Director of Klondex Mines from 2012 to 2018, until its acquisition by Hecla Mining Company.
Mr. Huet has a strong command of capital markets and has served in all levels of engineering and operations of Mining.
Mr. Huet graduated with honors from the Mining Engineering Technology program at Haileybury School of Mines in Ontario, and successfully completed the Stanford Executive program at the Stanford School of business.
In 2013 Mr. Huet was nominated for the Premiers Award in Ontario for outstanding college graduates; he is currently a member of OACETT as an applied Science Technologist and an Accredited Director.
“Antimony is part of the critical minerals list.
It’s one of the most important elements we need for missiles, for bullets, for night vision.
It’s very, very critical. In fact, in 1942, when World War II was ongoing, our mine was a significant supplier of antimony to the U.S. war effort.
At the moment, 80% of the world’s antimony processing is done in China.
We need antimony.
We need about 50 million pounds per annum, and we’re not generating it.
Americas is currently the largest domestic producer of antimony.
We’re mining 500 tons of ore a day.
It’s in our tetrahedrite ore so we mine and mill it every day.
What’s extremely important is to understand that the antimony comes to us at no additional cost.
We’re primarily a silver mining company but we also mine copper, lead and antimony.
By the way, all of those elements are on the U.S. critical mineral list.
But the antimony is so important.
In fact, we were able to renegotiate an off-take agreement with Ocean Partners to ship our concentrates up to Canada and start getting paid for our antimony.
However, the reality is that it should stay here in the U.S., given that we produce it here.
In fact, I’ll soon be flying into Washington, D.C., for meetings that include several members of the U.S. government to discuss antimony and how we can help solve this problem, given that we’re already producing it.
We have produced 450,000 pounds of antimony year-to-date at our U.S. operation.
I don’t think anybody can come anywhere near to that anytime soon.”
Mr. Huet manages several different mines through his company.
“There’s no doubt that doubling the silver production and some of the operational successes we’ve had at both our mines were key.
I’ll start with the Galena complex.
We were able to double that production only because we had debottlenecked some very critical parts.
First and foremost, we tested and tried a brand-new mining method — long hole stoping.
That’s a method done by using a long hole drill to drill and blast holes from an upper drift, down to a bottom drift — i.e., 120 feet long, 60 feet deep and 3 feet wide.
Then big chunks of the stope are blasted and the ore from the lower drift is scooped out, at which point the blasted/excavated section is filled with a cemented mix to reinforce the rock.
These are technical things, but they’re so important to the success of the future and getting back to 5 million ounces per year.
Our Galena mine in 2002 produced over 5 million ounces of silver.
Last year, it was maybe 1.2 million.
So, we’re on a path now to get back to that 5 million but we will not stop there.
With the acquisition of Crescent, we have the potential to be significantly higher than 5 million ounces of silver per year.
What are some of the other changes that were very critical?
Well, there were some key projects that were so important to that quarter and achieving those ounces.
To achieve those ounces, both of our operations had to run very smoothly.
And again, I’ll stick to Galena.
We had a 10-day planned shutdown during that quarter to improve the capacity in our main hoisting shaft.
It was phase one of two phases of work we need to do.
Phase one was very successful.
We were scheduled for a 14-day shut down, but we did it in 10 days.
What it allowed us to do is very significant.
It allowed us to take this shaft that has been there for over 60 years and double its capacity.
When we inherited this mine and this shaft, it was able to skip at a rate of about 40 tons per hour.
We went from a 1,750 horsepower to a 2,250 horsepower motor, with an additional motor for redundancy.
In changing the motor, we’re able to skip much faster, going up and down that shaft much quicker.
We’re now at a capacity of 80 tons per hour.
That doubled the capacity.
We can move up to 1,500 tons per day.
It’s the first time in the history of this mine that that’s ever been done.
That was significant, coupled with the fact that we bought over 10 new pieces of equipment underground there, and the new mining method.
So, the new team, the new mining method, the new equipment, and the debottlenecking of the shaft have allowed us to get to that production of 765,000 ounces of silver.
Over at Cosalá, we’ve been targeting toward getting into a brand-new zone, the El Cajón and Zone 120 silver-copper deposits referred to as EC120.
At the end of the quarter, we started achieving tons and ounces from EC120, so we were there a little sooner than expected.
That, coupled with the results from Galena and all the changes at Galena, have made Q3 a strong, strong quarter for us.”
Read the entire interview with Paul Andre Huet, CEO of Americas Gold and Silver Corp., exclusively in the Wall Street Transcript.
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