This is a transcript of a conference call held by MAG Silver, Tuesday, November 20, to respond to news reports that landholders from Benito Juarez had voted during an assembly meeting of the local community to expel MAG Silver from its Cinco de Mayo property in Chihuahua state, Mexico — and establish a 100 year mining moratorium.
Transcript by Seeking Alpha
Dan MacInnis, MAG Silver, President and Chief Executive Officer
Good morning one and all. My name is Dan MacInnis, I’m the President and CEO of MAG and I’d like to welcome everybody to this MAG Silver conference call. I’m also here today with Dr. Peter Megaw and Larry Taddei our CFO. We are here to discuss the recent events that’s related to our Cinco de Mayo property in Chihuahua State in northern part of Mexico.
The press release from this morning provided more detail and this morning’s press conference will hopefully provide some more context and correct a lot of misinformation that is also out there.
Let me begin first by stating that this event does not have any effect on our Juanicipio project. It’s the world’s highest grade and best undeveloped silver deposit on the planet today. And MAG is still forging ahead with Fresnillo to undertake an underground development program hopefully to begin in Q1 of next year. And the rest of the conference today, I will briefly review the contents of our press release, and reiterate some of several of the key parts and points that we have made and then move into a question-and-answer format.
And let me begin by stating that we reiterate that we are of the view that the November 17 assembly meeting at Benito Juarez Ejido was illegally called and was orchestrated by a small group of radical agrarian activists. This group is known as El Barzón, and they are opposed to mining and industrial agricultural development throughout the region.