Salazar Resources is an Ecuador-focused explorer with a 25% carried interest in the El Domo copper-gold project at Curipamba, plus exploration ground including Santiago, Pijilí, Tarqui-Quimi, and Macara. The interview was about what El Domo is worth to Salazar, whether they hold or sell that 25% later, how they plan to restart exploration, how they intend to fund that work, and how they see permitting, social license, and politics in Ecuador.

TL;DR

Salazar sees itself as more than a passive minority stakeholder in El Domo, but near-term value still runs through that asset. Management said El Domo is fully permitted, under construction, and that 2027 production is still reasonable after a six-month schedule push, but they also made clear Salazar’s 25% does not turn into a normal 25% cash share right away because Silvercorp gets 95% of project dividends until its equity capital is repaid. On the exploration side, they want to restart hard, but the real issue over the next year is financing and partner selection without taking ugly dilution.

What have they done for shareholders lately?

They pointed to El Domo first. Management said the project is fully permitted, construction started around the start of 2025, first contracts were signed in late December 2024, and construction was about 30% complete at the time of the interview. They also said the local legal challenge to the environmental process had already been rejected and that they see the permitting and social-license risk at El Domo as largely behind them. Outside El Domo, they said the field team is back on the ground, they are reactivating exploration, and they expect to start putting out updated technical information on the portfolio after a long stretch where the market mainly focused on El Domo.

How much money do they have and what are they spending it on?

The exploration plan could need about $30 million to $35 million over the next couple of years, but they do not want to raise that all at once so close to El Domo production. Management talked about possibly raising a smaller starter amount of roughly $3 million if pricing improved to around C$0.30 to C$0.35, while also looking for project-level partners and other financing structures instead of leaning only on equity. On spending, the focus is exploration work, drill target generation, and eventual drilling, while near-term holding costs include about $350,000 in licence fees due at the end of March. They also said Ecuador’s proposed “super tax” on ground is not in their plans to pay and they expect that issue to be resolved politically or legally.

Upcoming catalysts

Technical catalysts they mentioned were portfolio updates on Santiago, Pijilí, Tarqui-Quimi, and Macara, plus rock-chip, channel-sample, and target-generation work, with some properties needing three to six months to define drill targets. Operationally, they expect more construction updates from Silvercorp on El Domo and said a resource update could make sense because the current model is from 2021. Corporately, they flagged financing and partnership announcements as possible news flow. The clearest timeline they gave was that within about 12 months they expect drilling on at least three projects, with Tarqui described as a possible early one.

Risks

El Domo timing has already slipped once (weather and execution timing), so another delay would matter because the market is already focused on that. The company also needs a financing plan that take dilution into account. Additionally, they need to turn a long period of limited fresh exploration news into actual technical results. Lastly, Ecuador still carries jurisdiction risk through licence costs, policy uncertainty, community opposition, and broader legal complexity around consultation and consent.

Salazar Resources CEO Interview

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