Explorers Discover Deep Gold-Copper Systems in Mexico's Silver Belt

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1. Ownership and Share Structure Information

The information listed above was updated on the date this article was published and was compiled from information from the company and various other data providers.

2. Disclosure for the quote from the John Newell article published on March 31, 2026

1. For the quoted article (published on March 31, 2026), Regency Silver Corp. has paid Street Smart, an affiliate of Streetwise Reports, US$3,000.
2. Author Certification and Compensation: [John Newell of John Newell and Associates] was retained and compensated as an independent contractor by Street Smart for writing this article. Mr. Newell holds a Chartered Investment Management (CIM) designation (2015) and a  U.S. Portfolio Manager designation (2015). The recommendations and opinions expressed in this content reflect the personal, independent, and objective views of the author regarding any and all of the companies discussed. No part of the compensation received by the author was, is, or will be directly or indirectly tied to the specific recommendations or views expressed.

John Newell Disclaimer

As always it is important to note that investing in precious metals like silver carries risks, and market conditions can change violently with shock and awe tactics, that we have seen over the past 20 years. Before making any investment decisions, it's advisable consult with a financial advisor if needed. Also the practice of conducting thorough research and to consider your investment goals and risk tolerance.

Gold is testing the ceiling of its record-setting run as silver and copper climb higher — a rising tide giving explorers fresh room to raise capital and drill.

Gold ended Tuesday little changed after touching a more than three-month high earlier in the session, the rally stalling as bullion neared US$4,700 and investors waited on the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge, Kitco News reported August 25. Spot gold slipped 0.1% to US$4,647.03 an ounce by 2:16 p.m. EDT, while U.S. futures settled 0.1% lower at US$4,694.50.

"I think this is just a drop in momentum," said Bart Melek, global head of commodity strategy at TD Securities. "If anything, you can probably attribute this to gold moving to a strong resistance level at US$4,700 or so," after the metal earlier touched US$4,696.18.

Traders were weighing the U.S. Treasury's decision to double liquidity-support purchases of longer-dated debt ahead of the July PCE report and Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's Jackson Hole remarks,  as bets on near-term rate cuts faded. Chinese net gold imports through Hong Kong rose about 11% month over month in July, and geopolitical risk stayed elevated as Iran vowed to resist expanded U.S. sanctions.

That climb is lifting the entire sector. The combined market value of Mining.com's Top 50 rose from US$2.169 trillion to US$2.375 trillion over the first seven trading sessions of August — a US$206 billion gain that briefly put mining ahead of big tech year-to-date — with precious-metals companies contributing US$108 billion as gold pushed above US$4,500 and silver reached toward its January highs, Frik Els reported for the site on August 13.

Silver Rally Drives Mexican Miners Higher

Silver has climbed about 20% during August 2026, reaching roughly US$70 an ounce on August 21 before easing, industry analyst Paloma Duran wrote for Mexico Business News on August 24. The advance following the Treasury's decision to increase purchases of longer-term government bonds carried silver past several banks' full-year forecasts and renewed attention on Mexico, the world's largest silver producer. Having begun August near US$57.59, the metal logged one of its strongest monthly gains in years; because silver trades as both a monetary asset and an industrial input, Duran wrote, it tends to move harder than gold when bond markets reprice.

The rally has been a boon for Mexico-focused producers. Fresnillo Plc (FNLPF:OTCMKTS;FRES:LSE) nearly tripled its first-half profit despite lower Mexican production, Duran wrote, while First Majestic Silver Corp. (AG:TSX; AG:NYSE; FMV:FSE) raised its 2026 output outlook after record throughput in Coahuila and Sonora. It comes as the global silver market enters a sixth straight year of supply deficit, with industrial demand still expanding through solar, EVs, and AI infrastructure — a mix of tight supply and rising use that has strengthened the backdrop for producers, the report said.

According to the report, mining equities have outrun the metal itself: Hecla Mining Co. (HL:NYSE) gained 47% in August and First Majestic 42%, according to Duran, while Pan American Silver Corp. (PAAS:TSX; PAAS:NYSE), the smallest gainer among the names cited, still rose 22%.

Copper Does the Heavy Lifting

Yet the year's biggest gains have come from base metals, not bullion. Copper and diversified miners added US$246 billion, or 24%, while gold, silver and royalty names gained just US$18 billion, or 2.6% — and eight of the ranking's 18 precious-metals companies, among them Barrick Mining Corp. (ABX:TSX; B:NYSE), Gold Fields Ltd. (GFI:NYSE; GFI:JSE) and Fresnillo, were still trading lower for the year, the Mining.com analysis noted. The standouts were copper-levered, the analysis said: Glencore Plc (GLEN:LSE; GLN:JSE; GLCNF:OTCMKTS) (+40.9%) and Freeport-McMoRan Inc. (FCX:NYSE) (+34.4%), as copper pressed toward fresh Comex records.

As that tally shows, copper has done much of the heavy lifting while gold and silver command the headlines. In Mexico's Sierra Madre, at least two explorers have drilled beneath centuries-old silver workings into intrusive-related systems that carry not just silver, but gold — and, at Regency, copper — at depth.

Kootenay Silver Inc.'s Columba is a case in point, and a similar pattern is at play for Regency Silver Corp., roughly 400 kilometers northwest in Sonora. Where Kootenay encountered porphyry textures and gold-bearing intervals below an established epithermal vein resource, Regency drilled beneath the historic Dios Padre silver mine and hit a magmatic-hydrothermal breccia carrying gold, copper, and silver — a system its geologists interpret as widening with depth rather than pinching out. The difference is one of stage and scale: Kootenay is a developer with a positive PEA in hand at one project, and a 54.1 Moz inferred silver resource at another, while Regency remains a discovery-stage story built on 11.375 Moz AgEq inferred, with the completed 2025/2026 drill campaign having expanded and better defined the mineralized system.

Kootenay Silver Inc.

Kootenay Silver Inc. (KTN:TSX.V; KOOYF:OTCQX) spent years turning Columba into one of Mexico's higher-grade undeveloped silver deposits with 54.1 million inferred ounces at 284 grams per tonne (g/t). Then, late in 2025, the drill bit found something the silver veins had never advertised: gold.

In a November 19, 2025, release, the company reported that two holes along the project's I Vein trend — CDH-25-217 and CDH-25-218 — had cut porphyry-style gold mineralization hosted in breccias and feldspar porphyry, carrying the textbook signatures of an intrusive system: B-style quartz veins with molybdenite, disseminated pyrite, and phyllic alteration with sheeted stockwork. The gold's geochemical fingerprint, the company said, was "distinct from the silver veins indicating a separate event."

"Exploration at Columba continues to produce pleasant surprises," President and Chief Executive Officer James McDonald said. "We are now seeing a gold mineralizing event with gold-moly porphyry characteristics."

McDonald said the gold zone "may indicate a different deposit type exists," and that the two holes, 95 meters apart, are "associated with nearby magnetic highs, which may indicate the intrusive source of the gold." Vice President of Exploration Dale Brittliffe said the anomalous gold zones along the I Vein trend "are testament to the complexity and thereby potential of the Columba mineral camp."

The company said more drilling will be done to assess the new gold target. Its near-term focus stays on the resource and its recently completed preliminary economic assessment (PEA) at the La Cigarra Silver Project in Chihuahua.

The La Cigarra PEA — prepared by Sacré-Davey Engineering Inc. and Canenco Consulting Corp. and now backed by a filed NI 43-101 technical report — outlines a 14-year mine life and robust economics. Using consensus prices, it estimates an after-tax net present value of US$763 million at a 5% discount rate and a 41% internal rate of return; at spot prices, those climb to US$1.295 billion and 64%. Initial capital is pegged at US$332 million with US$80 million in sustaining capital and a 1.9-year after-tax payback. The 6,000-tonne-per-day operation would recover an average 89.3% of its silver and produce about 6.22 Moz annually over its first five years — averaging 4.55 Moz a year across the mine life, for 63.6 million payable ounces — at an average all-in sustaining cost of US$18.73 per ounce.

La Cigarra sits in the established Parral Mining District, about 20 to 30 kilometers north of the Santa Barbara and San Francisco Del Oro mines, which together produced roughly 440 million ounces of silver between 1650 and 1988 and still operate; Kootenay cautioned that neighboring results don't necessarily reflect La Cigarra's mineralization.

On August 7, Kootenay said it had filed the independent NI 43-101 technical report supporting a positive PEA for its wholly owned La Cigarra silver project in Chihuahua — titled "Preliminary Economic Assessment for the La Cigarra Silver Project, Hidalgo del Parral, Chihuahua State, Mexico," with an effective date of January 15, available under the company's profile on SEDAR+.

In a July 17 note, Red Cloud Securities' Ron Stewart called the PEA an important shift for Kootenay from explorer to developer — one that could draw interest from established producers — and upgraded the stock to Buy from Under Review with a CA$3.00 target. He noted the updated La Cigarra resource of 60.1 Moz indicated silver (23 Mt at 81 g/t) plus 17.3 Moz inferred (6.8 Mt at 79 g/t), up 23% from 2023 after a lower 30-g/t cutoff, and that Kootenay had drilled about 17,000 meters of a planned 60,000-meter expansion program at Columba, targeting its 54-Moz inferred resource. A further 10,000-meter La Cigarra campaign, between the San Gregorio and Las Carolinas zones, could add another 10% to 20%, he estimated.

"Collectively, KTN's four projects contain an estimated 217 Moz Ag (silver) or 379 Moz AgEq (silver equivalent) using our price deck," Stewart wrote. "Testing of La Cigarra oxides and sulphides yielded recoveries of ~82% and ~93%, respectively. Leach recoveries at Columba average ~71% but vary from 49.2% to 81.7%. Tests of Promontorio and La Negra ores returned mixed results, indicating more analysis is required."

On June 18, Research Capital Corp.'s Stuart McDougall lifted his target to CA$3.75 from CA$2.70 — keeping a Speculative Buy — after folding La Cigarra's measured and indicated resource into his model at US$1 per contained silver ounce (versus US$3 for higher-grade Columba) and adjusting for a US$18 million financing. "Payable gold, lead, and zinc contribute just 5.9% to projected net revenue, so we intend to review costs after the full details become available, given our view that such contributions warrant a by-product approach rather than a co-product one," McDougall noted, adding that the life-of-mine grade (78.66 g/t Ag) and 8-to-1 strip ratio "call for more detailed analysis before considering a switch to a discounted cash flow model," though management notes the deposit outcrops over its entire length.

¹About 15.45% of the company is held by insiders and management, about 11.04% by strategic investors, and about 0.12% by institutions. The rest is retail.

Its market cap is CA$138.74 million with 102.81 million shares outstanding. It trades in a 52-week range of CA$1.13 to CA$2.83.

Regency Silver Corp.

Four hundred kilometers northwest, in Sonora, Regency Silver Corp. (RSMX:TSX.V; RSMXF:OTCQB) has approached the same idea from the other direction — not a silver developer that stumbled onto porphyry gold, but an explorer testing for an intrusive system beneath a historic silver mine, a hypothesis its geologists had laid out before drilling.

Working below the past-producing Dios Padre silver mine, Regency has intersected a magmatic-hydrothermal breccia carrying gold, copper, and silver — a body it describes as "a large magmatic-hydrothermal system which widens at depth," with high-grade hits including 5.34 g/t gold over 54.65 meters. In a January 8 release, the company reported that hole REG-25-26 intersected multiple zones of sulfide-specularite breccia across a broad, non-continuous interval of roughly 240 meters well below the old workings, which it said supports its hypothesis that the porphyry-controlled breccia extends from depth toward the historic mine.

"Drill Hole REG 25-26 is a very significant development for the Dios Padre project," said Mike Tucker, director and head geologist. "We have hypothesized that the deeper, porphyry-controlled breccia should extend and continue to the old mine site at surface … This breccia intersection helps to validate our hypothesis."

In June, Regency reported completing its 2025/2026 campaign, whose 2026 portion comprised nine holes totaling 6,234 meters. The standout, hole REG-26-35, returned 5.06 g/t gold, 41.85 g/t silver, and 1.10% copper over 36.35 meters — within a broader 96-meter interval averaging 2.08 g/t gold — about 25 meters southeast along strike from discovery hole REG-22-01. A second hole, REG-26-29, cut 266.04 g/t silver and 0.56% copper over 7.55 meters (within 21.2 meters averaging 107.73 g/t silver and 0.27% copper) roughly 250 meters below the historic mine.

"The 2026 drill program has been highly successful," Chief Executive Officer and Director Bruce Bragagnolo said. "REG-26-35 is the most significant hole drilled to date due to its high content of gold, silver, and copper. We can now confirm that the breccia hosting mineralization at the silver mine is likely continuous to the deeper Au-Cu-rich breccia."

The mineralized breccia at depth now measures roughly 230 by 150 by 50 meters, he said, with a high-grade core of about 150 by 75 by 50 meters, and "remains open in all directions."

Drilling has traced the breccia to between about 125 and 250 meters below the historic Dios Padre mine, and the principal body now extends roughly 775 meters down plunge, with silver-copper mineralization in the upper part of the system giving way to gold-copper at depth — a zonation the company ties to what it calls a large magmatic-hydrothermal system that widens at depth. Step-out and infill holes drilled southeast and up-dip of earlier hits confirmed the zone's continuity laterally and vertically. The company has since pulled the drill and is reviewing the full results while mapping at Dios Padre and the nearby La India property, expecting to resume drilling once that evaluation is complete.

²On March 31, technical analyst John Newell of John Newell & Associates profiled Regency, framing it as an explorer positioned to draw attention as gold and silver regain momentum on inflation, government debt, and geopolitical worries. Dios Padre — between Hermosillo and Chihuahua City, with road access, power, and a skilled workforce nearby — sits in the Laramide porphyry belt and hosts a historic silver mine, and Regency has outlined an NI 43-101 inferred resource of about 11.375 Moz AgEq. Newell said ongoing drilling suggests mineralization could extend well beyond that footprint and pointed to Sonora's pedigree — Pan American Silver's Dolores and Alamos Gold Inc.'s (AGI:TSX; AGI:NYSE) Mulatos mines among them — as evidence of the region's prospectivity.

On the chart, Newell described a classic junior-explorer recovery: early results that lifted the stock, a multiyear decline as sector sentiment soured, a base as selling eased, and a recent breakout above a descending wedge on stronger volume. Discovery-stage explorers can outrun producers in strong metals markets, he noted, as majors hunt deposits to replace reserves.

"Based on the current chart structure and the exploration potential of the project, Regency Silver Corp. appears to represent a Speculative Buy near the CA$0.16–CA$0.20 range, with meaningful upside should future drilling confirm the geological model and continue expanding the discovery," Newell said.

¹The company's market cap is CA$16.56 million with 138.03 million shares outstanding. It trades in a 52-week range of CA$0.10 to CA$0.44.

About 5% of the company is owned by insiders and management. The rest is retail.

Common Investor Questions

What's driving gold, silver, and copper higher right now? Gold is testing the top of a record run, trading near US$4,700 an ounce as investors watch the Fed's preferred inflation gauge and Jackson Hole, while the U.S. Treasury doubles its purchases of longer-dated debt. Silver climbed about 20% in August 2026, reaching roughly US$70 an ounce, and copper has pushed toward fresh Comex records on tight supply and industrial demand. The combined value of Mining.com's Top 50 rose by US$206 billion over the first seven trading sessions of August.

Why does the story focus on Mexico's Sierra Madre? Because that's where the thesis plays out: at least two explorers have drilled beneath centuries-old silver workings and hit intrusive-related systems carrying not just silver but gold or copper at depth. Mexico is the world's largest silver producer, and both featured companies — Kootenay Silver and Regency Silver — are working in Mexican ground (Chihuahua and Sonora).

What did Kootenay Silver find at Columba? Kootenay had spent years defining Columba as one of Mexico's higher-grade undeveloped silver deposits — 54.1 million inferred ounces at 284 g/t. In a November 19, 2025, release, two holes on the I Vein trend (CDH-25-217 and CDH-25-218) cut porphyry-style gold mineralization whose geochemical signature the company called "distinct from the silver veins, indicating a separate event." CEO James McDonald said it "may indicate a different deposit type exists," with the holes near magnetic highs that "may indicate the intrusive source of the gold." The company plans more drilling to assess the target.

What has Regency Silver discovered at Dios Padre? Drilling below the past-producing Dios Padre silver mine in Sonora, Regency intersected a magmatic-hydrothermal breccia carrying gold, copper, and silver, which it describes as "a large magmatic-hydrothermal system which widens at depth." The company has completed its 2025/2026 drill campaign, which expanded the mineralized breccia system to approximately 230 by 150 by 50 meters, with a high-grade portion measuring roughly 150 by 75 by 50 meters. It has an NI 43-101 inferred resource of about 11.375 Moz silver-equivalent.

What were Regency's standout drill results? In its 2026 program (nine holes, 6,234 meters), hole REG-26-35 returned 5.06 g/t gold, 41.85 g/t silver, and 1.10% copper over 36.35 meters, within a broader 96-meter interval averaging 2.08 g/t gold. Hole REG-26-29 cut 266.04 g/t silver and 0.56% copper over 7.55 meters. Technical analyst John Newell called Regency a Speculative Buy in the CA$0.16–CA$0.20 range in a March 31 profile.

How do the two companies differ for investors? It's a difference of stage and scale. Kootenay is a developer with a positive PEA in hand at La Cigarra and a 54.1-Moz inferred silver resource at Columba, carrying a market cap of around CA$138.74 million. Regency is an earlier, discovery-stage story built on 11.375 Moz AgEq inferred, with a market cap of CA$16.56 million. It has completed its 2025/2026 drill campaign, which expanded and better defined the system, with further drilling to follow after evaluation. Both remain exploration/development plays whose results are subject to further drilling and confirmation.