Integra Resources Targets 300K-Ounce Gold Growth Plan | George Salamis

Integra Resources is moving deeper into producer territory as it stabilizes the Florida Canyon gold mine in Nevada and advances the DeLamar gold-silver project through federal permitting in Idaho. George Salamis, President and CEO of Integra Resources, joins Kitco Mining’s Paul Harris to discuss the company’s plan to grow organically into a mid-tier gold producer with more than 300,000 ounces of annual production.

Salamis said DeLamar’s Notice of Intent marks the point where the project is no longer preparing for permitting, but is “actually in it,” with the FAST-41 process targeting a Record of Decision in Q3 2027. He also said Integra’s priority is to show Florida Canyon is “not simply a transitional asset,” with an upcoming feasibility study expected in late June or early July.

The discussion covers Florida Canyon’s cash flow, DeLamar’s public scoping process, Idaho’s mine development momentum, project financing plans, stakeholder engagement with the Shoshone Paiute Tribe, Nevada North’s move from PEA to PFS, 50,000 meters of planned drilling, and why Salamis believes major gold producers may be nearing the next phase of M&A.

Recorded June 1, 2026.

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00:30 - Producer Life at Florida Canyon
01:45 - Five-Year Mid-Tier Vision
03:00 - Wildcat Expansion Plans
04:38 - Gold Price Changes Everything
05:58 - DeLamar Enters Federal Permitting
08:13 - FAST 41 Timeline Explained
09:29 - Idaho Momentum and State Permits
12:16 - Financing DeLamar with Cash Flow
14:15 - Tribal Partnership and Equity
17:14 - Answering Consent Criticism
19:15 - M&A Setup in Gold Sector
22:54 - Integra Catalysts Through 2027
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Disclaimer: The views expressed in this podcast are those of the author and may not reflect those of Kitco Metals Inc. The author has made every effort to ensure accuracy of information provided; however, neither Kitco Metals Inc. nor the author can guarantee such accuracy. This article is strictly for informational purposes only. It is not a solicitation to make any exchange in commodities, securities or other financial instruments. Kitco Metals Inc. and the author of this podcast do not accept culpability for losses and/ or damages arising from the use of this publication.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

The time is right for gold growth. Hello and welcome to Kitco Mining with me, Paul Harris. Today is Monday, June the first, and joining me is George Salamis, president and CEO of Integra Resources. George, welcome back to Kitco.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Oh, good morning.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

Good morning, George. I'm really looking forward to this conversation. Integra Resources became a gold producer. You've been a gold developer and you still are for a number of years. A lot going on in the gold space that I want to get into with you. Let's start with this. There seems to be quite a valuation disconnect between gold producers and the gold developers. Now, Integra crossed that Rubicon in late 2024 through the acquisition of the Florida Canyon gold mine in Nevada, and you went on to produce 71,000 ounces last year. How different is life as a producer than as a non sorry, a non-cash-flowing developer?

SPEAKER_01 1:00

Yeah, Paul, much different. I mean, uh, you know, as a producer, you're dealing with things at the mine site level daily, uh, things that impact the mining operation daily, good and bad, right? So it's it's all hands on deck. Um you know, a lot of initiatives to that that are afoot at Florida Canyon right now to in an effort to sort of stabilize what it what will be our our toughest year of gold production in terms of this mountain of stripping that we need to get to, to what is the big prize over the the years that follow. Uh the main, the central pit main ore bodies stripping to get to those. And so daily there are challenges, but uh we we get through those challenges. And as you mentioned, while we're doing that, we're we're in development mode on our other projects as well in in Idaho.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Okay, I want to sort of talk about the development projects in just a moment, George. But before we get there, maybe you can fill us in on a bit more of the big picture. What's the ultimate aim of the company? Um, you have development, you have production, you've been active on both sides of MA in your career. What do you want Integra to be or to become or to look like in, let's say, five years' time?

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Yeah, Paul, so the the aiming mark for us is to become a mid-tier gold producer with over 300,000 ounces of annual production. And we we can do that organically with the assets we have between Florida Canyon, Delamar, which is which is in permitting and development, which we'll talk about in a bit, and Nevada North. Um, we can certainly get there based on the estimates and the forecasts that we have. To start off, I mean, obviously our mission number one, you know, as of today, aside from permitting, is to not only stabilize Florida Canyon from a production perspective, but really demonstrate that this is an asset that that's not tired, it's not gone, it's it's not simply a transitional asset for us, but it it really is, has or will become a cornerstone asset for us based on the mine life that we see there. And I think the feasibility studies that will be coming out in a month's time will demonstrate that at Florida Canyon.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

Okay, and uh at Florida Canyon, you've also got uh expansion potential there via the wildcat deposit. Um how does that relate to Florida Canyon and what will potentially the sort of joint development or sorry, the development of wildcat, how will that change things or develop things, progress things at Florida Canyon?

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Yeah, that's that's a sort of an interesting point, which we're actually discussing internally right now, based on again this feasibility study that that we're putting, we will be putting out in about a month's time at Florida Canyon. You know, originally when we bought Florida Canyon, it came with uh a four or five year mine life to it, so you know, relatively finite uh according to the previous owner's view. That's no longer the case. We we do see a lot of longevity there, which will come out in that study. Our view when we first bought the asset was we would make sort of this seamless transition from Florida Canyon, if you will, to Wildcat the Nevada North projects, which are only about 25 miles to the west of Florida Canyon. We we now no longer see that. There'll be a fairly long period of time when potentially those two assets will be running at the same time. Uh that overlap period could be as much as three to five years. So it's not as if Florida Canyon shuts down and then we try and make this sort of seamless transition to the projects close by. We think that they'll be run in parallel. There will be some synergies, by the way, between those two projects, which we will demonstrate in in future studies. But our view of the landscape has changed in in so far as our production uh profiles in the future from uh northern Nevada.

SPEAKER_00 4:42

To what extent is that change view of the landscape, George, uh reflection of the change in the gold price? Because approximately the gold price has doubled since you bought Florida Canyon. Presumably that gives you much more leeway, or you can look at a lot of things that perhaps in the past when you initially required the acquired the operation were uneconomic or marginal or things of that nature.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Oh, indeed, it's changed, it's changed the landscape for us hugely, Paul. I mean, to the extent that we, because of the the cash flow that we're generating from Florida Canyon, it's allowed us to do a lot more expiration at Florida Canyon, for example, than we would have otherwise had the ability to do. And you know, putting a lot of money back into the ground, into expiration is is is paying fruit in terms of resources and reserve and expansion and growth. Um, it's also allowed us to reinvest back into the mining operation to replace a lot of equipment, to do a lot of things, a lot of mine optimization, which again we we wouldn't have been able to do had the gold price been been lower. We wouldn't we wouldn't have had that sort of margin to reinvest. So that's really changing our view of things like longevity at the mine site level and our ability to do a lot more exploration and growth.

SPEAKER_00 5:58

Excellent. Timing is uh everything is quite a quite a good phrase in the sector, isn't it? Um until the purchase of Florida Canyon, um, Integra Resources was better known for the Delamar Gold Silver Development Project in Idaho, and that's been the the main story for for most of the life of Integra Resources. In May, the US Bureau of Land Management published its notice to pretend to each eight National Environmental Policy Act or NEPA review process for Delamar, and Delamar has also been included in the Fast 41 Transparency Projects Program. George, what do these things these things mean for the permitting process for Delamar and its permitting timeline?

SPEAKER_01 6:40

Yeah, so so Friday, Paul, was a really big day for us, which is as you as you pointed out, we received our NOI or notice of intent to formally start the NEPA review process, right? This was big for us. It's the moment that Del Mar officially entered federal permitting. So we're no longer preparing for permitting, we're we're actually in it, which is great news. It feels like we've been waiting forever for that to happen. And it happened. It happened before we actually thought it could happen, which was good. We can talk about sort of you know government processes or federal regulatory processes to go faster, but a big day for us, obviously. Um a lot of work went into getting to that point. And it, you know, I think people view permitting as this sort of singular effort and without really understanding that you know there's a lot that goes into permitting, it's it's environmental studies. So you have a permitting department that's doing that all the while your engineering department is trying to keep up with you know new information that comes along from a baseline permitting perspective or a baseline analysis perspective. Um, and while you're doing that, your your your your community relations and stakeholder engagement department, they're engaging with stakeholders and and they're trying to judge what what the feedback is from that so as to fine-tune the plan. So there's really basically three pillars to to this permitting effort, which culminated in in Friday, big day for us. Um yeah, I mean, what can I say? I mean, this this next step really dramatically reduces one of the biggest risks for shareholders, which is uh and stakeholders, which is permitting.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

And what is the timeline on the permitting? Because the NEPA process entering that brings you on to a pretty stipulated timeline, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_01 8:25

It it it does, yes. And and uh for some of our our shareholders who might recall in January of this past year, we were we were afforded the um the benefit of being put into the Fast 41 fast tracking, if you will, which was essentially 15 months of uh permitting starting in last Friday, which gets us to a record of decision uh in the third quarter of next year. Lots of steps in between there, obviously, by the way. Uh for us, the the next big step is public scoping work, which starts essentially immediately. And that's the that's a key step because that's a step where we gather key information from our stakeholders as to what they think of our mine plan or the proposed mine plan at Delamar, um, what tweaks we could be making along the way to make the mine plan better and to suit our stakeholders and and what what they want really. So again, this is not simply about what we want to do at Delamar or what perhaps the BLM wants to see happen. This is this is a big step for us when we start to gather all that information to really hear from our stakeholders as to what they want to see out there.

SPEAKER_00 9:34

At Delamar, you published a feasibility study in late 2025 for a heat bleach operation to produce more than 106,000 ounces a year of gold equivalent for 10 years following an initial capital cost of about $389 million. Idaho, where the project is based, that's seeing a lot of mine development at the moment with uh STIBnite, uh which is perpetual resources, they've been permitted, they're they're under construction. We've got the Sunshine Silver uh IPO that's uh coming in a matter of days, if not weeks. Uh, America's Gold and Silver has done a lot of consolidation in the Silver Valley, they're doing very well. They've also got Antimony Production. Um, and you uh your project has garnered a lot of support from Governor Brad Liddle as well, who himself garners support from US President Donald Trump. Uh again, the timing aspect, a lot of things seem to be going very positively for mining and development in general in Idaho.

SPEAKER_01 10:32

That's correct. Um, I mean, with with Stipnight now sort of moving along from a permitting perspective, all eyes are on Delamar, obviously. And that brings up a key point, Paul, which is state level permitting. You know, we just entered the federal permitting process or NEPA on Friday, but in parallel with everything that we're doing from a federal regulatory permitting perspective, there's a there's an entire separate effort which goes in parallel at the state level. And that's key, obviously. We have to we have to ensure that you know everything that we're doing federally syncs with what we're doing at a state level because we also need state level permits as well. So that's that's all ongoing now. Um in terms of the support from the state, the state wants to go seemingly as as as quickly without skipping steps as the federal regulatory administration wants to go on this project. So, you know, our our timeline is now defined and back to what you know what NEPA looks like in FAST 41. It's it's a it's a defined process where anybody, and there's a there's a link that that uh that our stakeholders and shareholders can click, that they can now see uh where we are on the permitting, federal permitting timeline at any point in time over the next 15 months. Um so that brings a lot of transparency along with it. So you know it's it's going to be it's going to be, what can I say? It's gonna be a busy time for us while we're doing all that. And all the while we still have you know detailed engineering to prepare for at Delamar. We've got we've got a lot of things on the go where we're sort of nipping and tucking certain elements of the site to prepare it for an eventual development decision. So, yeah, busy times at Delamar, busy times in Idaho.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Excellent. What are your thoughts on financing the Delamar development, George? Uh I imagine your options are now multiple and varied now that you're a producer. What are you thinking? What would you be your ideal financing package for the project?

SPEAKER_01 12:35

I think I think the first look for shareholders, Paul, and in terms of what that could look like will really come from back to Florida Canyon now, will come from that, the the Florida Canyon feasibility study. And so our shareholders will get a first look at what what the cash flow generation could look like out of Florida Canyon, which then determines how much of a you know basically equity position we can we can bring to the table in terms of project financing or how much of our treasury, treasury we can deploy on financing Delamar. Um, you know, ideally, we would love to have 50% of the total capital requirement in our treasury by the the the time we we put the shovel in ground, which is would be estimated for the spring of 2028 in our case. So again, that that all relates back to Florida Canyon and cash flow generation from Florida Canyon itself, which will determine what those those terms look like.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

It seems the sequencing could be very uh complementary there with the an expansion or or production increase at Florida Canyon, um, then sequencing into the development of Delamar. Um is that how you're seeing things?

SPEAKER_01 13:45

It is indeed how we're seeing things. I mean, it's not, you know, Florida Canyon is a mature mining operation, all the infrastructure is there. We've just, you know, we will have by the end of this year reinvested about $120 million generated by cash flow from the mine side back into that mining operation. That that equipment is going to allow this asset to really perform for you know the next eight to ten years, let's just say. And um, that's our view. We can generate a significant amount of cash flow, which will then go to fund our growth and development projects in Delamar specifically.

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Okay. Um, I want to talk a little bit more about stakeholder relations and bring this up in the in the context of the fact that you recently granted the Shoshone Balti tribes um stock in the company. What was the sort of thinking behind that, George?

SPEAKER_01 14:36

Yeah, so I mean, we've been engaged with the Shoshone Paiute tribe for uh uh the better part of five years now, and and you know, that's been that's been a kind of a hallmark of integra in what we do. You know, we we did it in in Canada previously, which was engage early with our stakeholders and specifically our First Nations stakeholders. In this case, you know, the Shoshone Paiute have been involved in every step of our development. They've they've had a seat at the table with us uh all the way. And um this last step was essentially our effort to collaborate with them to not only bring them at the table, but make them a partner in in terms of direct equity ownership in Tegra itself. Um this is just you know step one of several milestones to come with the Shoshone Paiute. And what we're what we've structured here in terms of a relationship agreement or a benefit agreement, if you will, with with uh with the tribe is not uncommon in the context of, say, Canadian mining, if you will, or or mining that's performed in in other areas. But you know, this is there are some first-of-a-kind elements to what we've done in the US, and we we hope it uh we hope that this idea germinates with other mining companies. We hope this becomes the new model for tribal engagement in the US going forward with respect to mining. It's it's time that that happens.

SPEAKER_00 15:58

Excellent. In Canada, as you refer, George, the the First Nations there typically have development corporations which a mining company or developer can engage with and and negotiate contracts with and provide benefits for. Is there that structure in the US or is that something you have to help them put in place to manage the shares that um you're granting them?

SPEAKER_01 16:21

Yeah, we so great point. Um I would say that the tribes in in the US don't have the sort of bandwidth that the tribes in Canada have or have grown to have over the over the better part of the last 20 or 30 years. So we are starting off with a blank slate with with the tribe. We're working with them. Um, you know, we're we're we're in discussions with them about what business opportunities that that can be generated from the mining operation that they could potentially participate in. And they do have some bandwidth on that end. Uh, it does help that the uh the tribal chief that we're dealing with of the Shoshone Paiute is has worked in the mining business for the better part of the last 30 years for for uh Newmont and Barrack and Kinross. So so you know he knows the direct benefits that can be derived from from mining. So you know, we can cut to the chase pretty quickly on what what business opportunities uh they can engage in that will benefit them, and that's that's great, obviously, for us to have.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

Now, many opinions circulate around such things from tribes obtaining you know justified, necessary, deserved benefits from companies operating in their territories. Anti-mining lobbies often paint these kind of things as companies seeking to buy consent from the First Nation. How do you defend against such claims or allegations?

SPEAKER_01 17:40

Oh gosh, I mean, it for for us, it came just taking a step back to when we entered the US and we saw the the uh the permitting landscape of how permitting actually occurred to get a mining project into production. We we saw that there was this sort of this constant repetitive cycle of a project getting to the end of federal permitting only to face litigation right at the end. And that litigation typically came as a result of um lack of tribal engagement between the proponent, which is you know the mining company, and the tribe itself, because there really wasn't within the framework of US regulatory permitting, really no onus to engage or or or make the proponent uh or the mining company deal with the tribes until the very end of the permitting process. And I could see how that that would that would disenfranchise the tribe at a minimum. So it's the right thing to do. It's it's you know, having the proponent make make the or have the their their uh stakeholders or their their tribal stakeholders in this case um part of everything that happens from a permitting development and operation perspective, it's it's the right thing to do. It's not there, nobody's being bought here. They're they're they're part of the process now. And if if it avoids five years of of painful, expensive, time-wasting litigation, why wouldn't why wouldn't a proponent do it? It's the right thing to do. It recognizes their tribal sovereign sovereignty, it gives them a benefit, and and they're actually part of a process. It's the right thing to do in the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Well, thank you for that, George. Let's get back to MA. Um, as I mentioned earlier, you've in your career you've been involved in both sides of MA transactions. Uh, you've undertaken MA with integral resources. In general terms, how do you view the setup for MA in the gold sector at the moment? What do you see as being the key drivers behind that? And who do you think will be the most likely protagonists?

SPEAKER_01 19:43

Yeah, good question. The most likely protagonists, I would I would say, would be sort of the major mining companies who have who have built up these incredible treasuries. As you know, Paul, you know, the last two years has been has been a real boom cycle for the for the gold producers, specifically the mid-tier and the larger cap uh gold producers out there. Um at some point, and we've seen this movie over and over again, you know, certainly throughout my career, uh, having gone through numerous gold cycles, you know, we we see this this repeating pattern of major producers building up a treasury, and then they'll build up a uh a phenomenal treasury, then they'll they'll buy back their stock or they'll issue dividends. Uh, and that placates the the shareholders for a certain period of time. And then at some stage, those shareholders will step up and say, Okay, well, this is great. You've returned money for uh from to us in the form of dividends and you've bought some stock back, but where's your growth? And then you know, these these producers will turn and you know, they'll ask their corporate development departments and their mining departments, well, where is the growth? And you know, in fact, that there's there's very little growth. So it then gets them into a mode of, oh, we must buy something. I've seen this before, um, having worked for the the major mining companies before myself. And so that's when the real cycle kicks off. I don't think we're too far away from that, Paul. Um, you know, these these treasuries are are becoming massive, and they have to do something with these treasuries now. And in order to grow, they're gonna have to start buying things, and I think we're not too far off from that.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

George, if we go back so six or seven years, uh Barrack bought Rangold, Newmont bought Gold Corp, and let's say MA was put on pause while people waited to see what would fall out of those two transactions in terms of divestitures. A lot of that has already happened. Today, a lot of the talk is about you know Barrack Gold, sorry, Barrack mining potentially spinning out, doing an IPO of its North American assets. Does that put a lot of MA talks on hold until the market, until the protagonists, the other producers see what happens, what the lie of the land will be, as and when and if Barrack mining does IPO its North American assets?

SPEAKER_01 21:58

Um I I wonder. Whether it really did put anything on pause, Paul. I mean, you know, despite those, the these big sort of potential sort of splitting or or divesting of assets and by geography, if you will, on behalf of Barrick, you know, we still saw very recently, for example, um mergers of equals in the form of Equinox and Orla. I think those things, those, those types of MOEs will continue to occur. In terms of what that looks like from a junior producer perspective, our perspective, you know, it it is, in fact, as you said, it's a it is a waiting game to see you know potentially what assets might shake loose from some of these MOEs, where you know individually some of their own assets worked for them while they were singular companies, but on a merge basis, maybe they don't, they're non-core. So maybe there are things that will shake loose from these things. We we keep a close eye on that sort of things, and I know our competitors do as well.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

Okay, well, let's finish um on integral resources. You've got a lot going on, George, so maybe you can recap what some of the key catalysts will be for the remainder of this year and into 2027 that our viewers should watch out for.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

Indeed, yeah. So we're we're as busy as we've ever been in uh since we've existed as a company for the last eight years. We've got the first off at Florida, Florida Canyon, obviously stabilizing production out there on a quarterly basis. That's that's job number one for us and delivering on our guidance. Uh, step number two is to deliver this feasibility study, which will come out at Florida Canyon um end of June, early July. And that will show a brand new mine plan, a brand new life of mine plan, and uh and the production profiles that will go out into the future. I think that's going to be a great study for our shareholders to have a look at. And then while we're doing all of this, we'll we'll be getting feedback from our development stage project at Delamar. We'll be into the key public scoping process, and we'll start to receive feedback from that and then transition into the EIS process. While we're doing all that at Delamar, of course, we're into the detailed engineering aspect of preparing the project to actually get built. And that's a that's a really important step. So lots of work that's going on outside on site at Delamar at the moment to advance the project along to get us to a decision point to invest and build a mine. So that's on the go. And while all of that's still on the go, we've got Nevada North uh and moving that project from PEA to PFS towards the end of this year. Um, so we'll be kicking off drilling and getting to the drilling aspect. Uh we announced earlier this year that we're drilling a record amount of uh of meters uh between Idaho and Nevada. 50,000 meters is what we have to complete between now and the end of the year. So lots of drilling, um lots of value to be generated at the end of the drill bit. With all of these other studies on the go, with permitting on the go, uh we are we are busy, but busy in a great way. We're all really excited about uh what's to come.

SPEAKER_00 25:01

Well, we'll certainly have to catch up in a few months' time to get an update on some of those. Uh it's great to see you with a really happy smiley face. George, congratulations on a great 2025 and a great 2026 so far to date. Um, unfortunately, that's it for now. George Salamis, thank you very much for joining me today.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

Paul, it's a pleasure as always.

SPEAKER_00 25:21

And of course, if you like what you see, don't forget to hit that subscribe button. I'm Paul Harris, and this is Kitco Mining.