Phil Baker: So Lucas, probably the best source of information as to what we think 2025 and 2026 will look like is our technical report. And so I would point that up for your attention. And at this point, we don’t see anything dramatically different from that other than we do have higher gold prices. Where we have experienced some lower grades than what we had in the plan. So we’re going to be watching that closely and trying to figure out what’s happening there, if it’s temporary or if there’s more to that. I don’t know anything else
Carlos Aguiar: I don’t think I have much to add. Certainly, higher gold prices could potentially cause us to have a little bit more material from the underground. I think if you step back and you think about the entirety of Casa Berardi, it’s probably around the — kind of around the edges. But we’ll take the opportunity if we have the opportunity. And when you ask the strategic question, I guess, look, we see Casa as playing an important role of providing us with diversification, giving us scale. But frankly, we are certainly more focused on silver and always have been and Casa and gold was a means to an end of being able to be larger in order to take on more silver opportunities. And it’s serving that purpose and I think it will continue to serve in the future. But the focus certainly is on silver, Lucas.
Lucas Pipes: And Phil, on that, you speak with a lot of excitement and passion about the outlook of the silver market. I think I’ve heard growth aspirations about Hecla and the S&P 500 and so when kind of taking a step back, how aggressive do you want to be over the next few years to pursue the silver opportunity? Is this a time to focus on Keno, get that up first or maybe press forward on a couple of different fronts to pursue the opportunity outlined at.
Phil Baker: Well, I guess, certainly, we’ve got to focus on Keno and get that up and running the way we think it can. But Keno is a long-term game, it’s – it is – I have no doubt that it is probably — we currently have an 11-year mine life. I have no doubt that we are finding more, and we will end up with a longer mine life than that. And so it’s one that’s an evolution. With respect to acquiring new things, we’re certainly always looking and it’s — and we’re more focused on what the opportunities when they arise and trying to put things together than trying to time something. So if things become available, and it’s — people want to — they see the vision of Hecla as continuing to be the premier silver producer and one that’s even bigger and one that could conceivably reach this goal of S&P 500, we would want to have them join up with us to help us achieve that.
But we don’t have to do those things. I mean, we have within our portfolio, there’s eight projects that we have that are silver projects. And some of them, particularly the Libby exploration, and things that we have in Montana have the capacity to fundamentally change Hecla and really have a step forward to be able to accomplish some of these goals on our own. But we’re going to be continuing to look, and we want to bring other assets in it, if we can.
Lucas Pipes: Phil, really appreciate the color and perspective to the entire team, continued best of luck. Thank you.
Phil Baker: Thank you, Lucas.
Operator: [Operator Instructions] Your next question comes from Joseph Reagor of ROTH MKM. Your line is now open.
Joseph Reagor: Hey, Phil and team, thanks for taking the questions. I guess, following on something Heiko asked on the ramp-up and maintenance costs, can you give us any guidance on what those might look like over the remainder of this year and then kind of long-term?
Phil Baker: When you say the maintenance costs, what are you referring to, Joe. By the way, hi, Joe. What are you referring to?
Joseph Reagor: So there was — in Q1, there was like $14.5 million between ramp-up costs, which I know you guys attributed some of that to expenses versus revenue at Lucky Friday and Keno. But beyond that, how much of that is ongoing care and maintenance for like Nevada and San Sebastian, et cetera?
Phil Baker: You have to break down that.
Russell Lawlar: I do — certainly for Q1, most of that cost; $9 million was related to Keno. $2 million was Lucky Friday and the Nevada and San Sebastian were $3 million and $0.5 million, respectively.
Joseph Reagor: So $2 million at the Lucky Friday relates to that…?
Phil Baker: Just one month.
Russell Lawlar: I think that long term, it will go down to just the Nevada and San Sebastian numbers. And certainly, one of the things that we’re working on actively is looking to minimize those as well because we want to make sure that those expenses are as small as we can.
Phil Baker: Yes. And Joe, I’m glad you followed up on Heiko’s question, because I probably should point out again that we are taking Brian Erickson, who’s been at Greens Creek for 27 years and has been the GM, I don’t know, last four, five. And we’ve asked him to be a regional Vice President over both Greens Creek and Keno. And the reason for that is to try to look for synergies between the two operations because in the mining world, these are actually very close together. They’re — it’s about a six or seven-hour trip from one mine to the other. And if you fly the whole way, if you flew you could do it in two hours, including immigration. So — and you think about materials, it’s all coming up through the Inland Passage. It actually goes right by Greens Creek.
And so we’re going to try to combine procurement and nobody will be better than Brian at looking at what things we can do together between those two operations in order to drive the cost structure down, try to apply fixed costs that we have at Greens Creek to Keno without increasing Greens Creek’s fixed cost. That’s the idea. And it’s going to — again, it’s going to be an evolution at Keno, it’s — it took a long time for Greens Creek to be cash flow positive. It will not take that long at Keno, but it’s going to be a period of time that we will be investing in. I just don’t have the visibility at this point as to what those synergies might be in order to drive that quicker.
Joseph Reagor: Okay. Okay. Fair enough. And then as you think about Keno, progress again in Q1 compared to Q4, you’re maintaining your guidance for the year. But are there any issues that are ongoing there that you guys feel may ultimately result in needing to make a significant capital investment to fix something or increase the fleet size or whatever?
