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| Every investor wanting to leverage today’s tremendous bull market in gold and silver is looking for an ideal company that...
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| ...Provides direct leverage to rising metals prices through profitable production
...Offers the growing value of a steep production growth curve
...And still provides the explosive upside potential of exploration
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| To say it’s hard to find such an all-encompassing mining investment would be an understatement.
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| Which is why two of the most dynamic companies and management teams in the industry decided to create such an ideal investment — with the just-announced merger of Contango Ore (CTGO) with Dolly Varden Silver (DVS.NYSE-A; DVQ.V).
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| The result of that merger won’t be just a bigger company…it’s going to mark the birth of a new North American high-grade gold and silver producer whose growth is designed to be driven by cash flow, not constant dilution.
And it’s being led by some of the sharpest, most forward-looking executives in the sector — Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse as CEO, Shawn Khunkhun as President, and Mike Clark as CFO — a power-packed dream team that’s been ahead of the curve at every stage of this evolving bull market.
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| The Merger-Of-Equals That Actually Is One
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| Here’s the basic outline of this landmark deal:
Contango Ore and Dolly Varden Silver have agreed to combine on a true merger-of-equals basis. When the deal closes, existing shareholders of each will own roughly 50% of the new company, to be renamed Contango Silver & Gold Inc.
Right out of the gate, this “MergeCo” steps into the ranks of billion-dollar mid-tiers with:
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| • Over US$100 million in cash
• Only about US$15 million in debt
• A portfolio that spans production, development and high-impact exploration across Alaska and British Columbia
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| In other words, this isn’t a hope-and-dreams story.
It’s a cash-flowing producer, with a fully funded pipeline of high-grade projects, in tier-one jurisdictions…just as gold and silver are asserting themselves in a new phase of the bull market.
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| The Engine:
Manh Choh’s High-Grade Cash Machine
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| At the heart of this merger is one of the highest-grade open pit gold mines on the planet: the Manh Choh mine in Alaska.
Manh Choh is already in production. Ore is trucked to Kinross’s Fort Knox mill near Fairbanks, where it’s processed under a JV structure that keeps capital intensity low and cash flow high.
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| For the first nine months of 2025, Manh Choh produced 173,400 ounces of gold (52,020 ounces attributable to Contango) at an all-in sustaining cost of US$1,505 per ounce — and threw off US$87 million in cash distributions to Contango over that period alone.
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| That’s the “engine” that will quietly, relentlessly fund the rest of this story.
Because instead of returning to the market over and over to raise equity at whatever price it can get, the combined company plans to rely heavily on Manh Choh’s cash flow to build out its next generation of mines.
That’s the key point here: growth driven by production, not by selling more stock.
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| High-grade gold and silver — and lots of it — spread across a diverse pipeline of projects in desirable jurisdictions. That’s what the new Contango Silver & Gold will offer.
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| From One Mine To A Portfolio Of High-Grade Opportunities
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| So what exactly are investors getting in this new Contango Silver & Gold?
On day one, the combined company will control:
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| • Manh Choh — a high-grade, cash-flowing open pit mine in Alaska, operated by Kinross, with roughly 8 g/t reserve grade and a proven record of distributions.
• Lucky Shot — a fully permitted, high-grade underground gold project in Alaska’s historic Willow Mining District, with indicated resources of 0.1 million ounces at 14.5 g/t, underground access in place and an 18,000-meter drill program currently underway and aimed at growing measured and indicated resources into the 400,000–500,000-ounce range ahead of a DSO feasibility study by 2027.
• Johnson Tract — a polymetallic, precious-metal-rich system in Alaska with 1.1 million gold-equivalent ounces in indicated resources, robust economics (NPV5% of US$615 million, 53% IRR, sub-one-year payback at US$4,000 gold) and acceptance into the FAST-41 permitting framework, with road construction targeted for 2026 and a DSO feasibility decision by 2029.
• Kitsault Valley — a district-scale, high-grade silver-gold project in British Columbia’s Golden Triangle, hosting over 60 million ounces of silver and 1.0 million ounces of gold in current resources, with a 56,131-meter 2025 drill program already delivering standout intercepts like 1,422 g/t silver over 21.7 meters at Wolf and multi-ounce gold hits at Homestake. There are still 80 holes waiting for assays that will be reported on over the next two months, to be followed up with an updated resource incorporating 200,000 meters of drilling coming in H1 2026.
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| This is not a single-asset story. It’s a multi-asset platform that spans:
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| • Cash-flowing production today
• High-grade, near-term development projects
• Large-scale exploration upside in two of North America’s best mining jurisdictions
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| And thanks to Contango’s “direct shipping ore” (DSO) philosophy — using existing mills instead of building new ones whenever possible — each new project has the potential to come online with lower upfront capex and faster paybacks.
That’s how you build a mid-tier the smart way.
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| The DSO Model:
Ahead Of The Curve, Again
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| It’s no accident that both sides of this merger are aligned around the DSO approach.
Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse and the Contango team were early champions of the idea that the next generation of miners should avoid building massive, capital-hungry processing plants if they could instead tap existing regional infrastructure.
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| Partner with majors. Truck ore to existing mills. Focus on high-grade, high-margin deposits with shorter paths to cash flow.
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| Now Dolly Varden’s Kitsault Valley joins Contango’s Lucky Shot and Johnson Tract under that same development framework — high-grade deposits, near infrastructure, with metallurgy that fits a DSO model.
Johnson Tract and Kitsault Valley are particularly synergistic: both high grade, both near tidewater, both amenable to similar processing routes. Taken together, they form the backbone of a future growth profile that can be advanced using Manh Choh’s cash flow as the primary fuel.
In a world where many mid-tiers are still trying to finance billion-dollar builds, this is a different philosophy entirely.
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| The Dream Team At The Helm
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| But assets and strategy are only half the story.
The other half is leadership — and here, the new Contango Silver & Gold is quietly assembling one of the most compelling teams in the business.
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| The combined company will be led by Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse as CEO (a veteran mine builder with a long track record of value creation in Alaska and beyond) and...
...Shawn Khunkhun as President (one of the most agile, capital-markets-savvy executives in the junior space, who helped transform Dolly Varden into a premier Golden Triangle story).
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| These are operators and dealmakers who have consistently been ahead of where the industry is going.
Ahead of the market in seeing Alaska’s DSO potential. Ahead of the market in consolidating a cornerstone land package in the Golden Triangle. And now, ahead of the market again in combining cash-flowing production with a fully funded pipeline of high-grade projects — all inside a single, North American–focused mid-tier.
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| When institutions go looking for mining companies that offer it all, from gold and silver production to development to exploration, they’ll see Contango Silver & Gold standing alone as the only high-growth option in the entire market.
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| The Opportunity In Front Of Us
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| This merger fundamentally upgrades Contango from a well-positioned Alaskan producer-in-the-making into a full-fledged, high-grade North American mid-tier with:
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| • Cash flow today
• Multiple high-grade development projects for tomorrow
• The on-going upside of high-grade exploration
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| All of it guided by a management duo that has repeatedly proven they know how to be early — in the right districts, with the right structures, at the right time.
The good news is that the story is only just starting to get out.
The time to evaluate it is now — before Contango Silver & Gold becomes the go-to name for institutions seeking North American gold and silver exposure with a powerful growth kicker.
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| CLICK HERE
To Learn More About Contango Ore and the New Contango Silver & Gold Inc.
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