Comstock Q1 2026 Earnings Report

Comstock EPS Results

• Actual EPS: -$0.14
• Consensus EPS: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• One Year Ago EPS: N/A

Comstock Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $0.31 million
• Expected Revenue: N/A
• Beat/Miss: N/A
• YoY Revenue Growth: N/A

Comstock Announcement Details

• Quarter: Q1 2026
• Date: 5/7/2026
• Time: After Market Closes
• Conference Call Date: Thursday, May 7, 2026
• Conference Call Time: 4:30PM ET

Comstock (NYSEAMERICAN:LODE) Mining, Inc. (NYSE: LODE) is a growth-oriented mineral exploration and production company focused on the historic Comstock Lode in Virginia City, Nevada. The company’s primary business activities include the development, extraction and sale of gold and silver from its flagship Lucerne project. Comstock leverages modern mining techniques and infrastructure to access high-grade ore bodies in one of North America’s most renowned silver-gold districts.

In addition to its core precious metals operations, Comstock Mining maintains a commercial real estate division centered in Virginia City’s historic district. This arm of the business invests in and manages a portfolio of restoration projects, hospitality assets and lease-back arrangements. The dual focus on mineral resources and real estate enables Comstock to diversify revenue streams while supporting community revitalization in the region.

Founded in its current form in the early 2010s, Comstock Mining has built on a legacy dating back to the 19th-century discovery of the original Comstock Lode. The company is headquartered in Virginia City, with all active exploration and production located within Storey and Washoe counties in Nevada. Corrado “Cory” De Gasperis serves as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, guiding Comstock’s strategy to expand its resource base, optimize production and enhance value for shareholders.

Comstock Q1 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Positive Sentiment: Completed oversubscribed financing of $57.5M (≈$53M net) and ended Q1 with just over $53M in cash after spending ~$14M on the first facility, with substantially all first-plant capex now complete.
• Positive Sentiment: The industry-scale metals recycling facility in Silver Springs is assembled and being commissioned, with commercial operations expected in June (continuous by July) and management targeting facility breakeven at 20% utilization (corporate breakeven at 50%).
• Positive Sentiment: Management plans further downstream investment — ~$1.5M for glass/product upgrades and a planned ~$10M program to build a 1 ton-per-day metal recovery pilot (R&D) to recover silver, copper and silicon, targeting >90% silver recovery to improve unit economics as throughput scales.
• Positive Sentiment: The company has agreed preliminary terms to sell remaining mining assets and is advancing Sierra Springs monetization (power secured up to 300 MW); a Q3 definitive agreement is expected and management says proceeds would materially simplify the balance sheet, provide meaningful cash and reduce cash spending by up to ~$1.5M annually.
• Negative Sentiment: Q1 operating expenses increased by about $1.7M due to higher headcount, facility and commercialization costs and the company reported a net loss of ≈$9.4M, though interest expense declined to zero and interest income rose due to the strong cash position.

Presentation

[Zach Spencer, Treasurer and Corporate Secretary at Comstock]

Good afternoon, and thank you for joining Comstock Inc.'s first quarter 2026 results and business outlook. I'm Zach Spencer, Treasurer and Corporate Secretary. Today is Thursday, May 7th, 2026. We are streaming live, and this session is being recorded. A recording will be posted shortly after we adjourn in the investor relations section of our website. Today, we filed our Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31st, 2026, and issued a press release summarizing quarter-end results. Both documents are available on our website. As a reminder, Comstock is listed on NYSE American with the ticker LODE, L-O-D-E. Joining me today are Corrado De Gasperis, Comstock's Chief Executive Officer, and Judd Merrill, Comstock's Chief Financial Officer. After their prepared remarks, we will take questions. We received more than 25 questions in advance of the call.

[Zach Spencer, Treasurer and Corporate Secretary at Comstock]

If you have additional questions during the call, please use the Zoom Q&A window, and we will address as many as time allows. Today's discussion will include forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ materially due to risks and uncertainties detailed in our SEC filings. Full risk disclosures can be found in our filings on the investor relations page and on the SEC website. With that, it is my pleasure to introduce our Chief Financial Officer, Judd Merrill. Judd, you may begin.

[Judd Merrill, CFO at Comstock]

Thanks, Zach. Good afternoon, everyone. I have a few prepared remarks, then we'll move on through the slide deck here. The first quarter of 2026 reflects a continuation of the transformation we drove in 2025. More importantly, it marks the beginning of execution at scale. We are now transitioning from a period defined by successful balance sheet recapitalization, institutional banking, and capital formation, and expanded and enhanced governance into a period focused on operational development, commercialization, and monetization. Here are a few comments on the first quarter. As we discussed in our last investor call earlier this year, we completed an oversubscribed equity financing of $57.5 million in gross proceeds and $53 million net of offering expenses.

[Judd Merrill, CFO at Comstock]

Our cash balance at the end of the first quarter was just over $53 million. This is after $14 million that's already been paid between August 2025 and March 31st, 2026, that's for our first facility. Funds for our future recovery solutions for producing silver and copper and other metals is estimated at $10 million. Our second facility is estimated at $13 million, that won't be deployed until our first facility is up and running and scaling and is profitable. Of that first $14 million for the first industry scale facility, which many of you have registered to come and see on May 28th during our AGM, $6.8 million was used in the first quarter. Now substantially all the capital expenditures for our first plant have been completed.

[Judd Merrill, CFO at Comstock]

We also invested $7.75 million in SSOF, this was at very attractive valuation. After we committed to natural gas that can power up to 300 MW of power to those and to the other Comstock properties in Silver Springs, now we're positioned for a higher value monetization. We also recognized $1.4 million cash gain on the sale of royalty rights associated with the prior sale of our northern mining claims, reflecting continued progress in monetizing these non-core assets. Separately, we have also now agreed on preliminary terms for selling all of our remaining mining assets. We're now in the due diligence process with the expectation of announcing a definitive agreement in the third quarter.

[Judd Merrill, CFO at Comstock]

Should this transaction happen, it would result in significant simplification, meaningful cash, cleaner and stronger balance sheet, and meaningful upside in annual cost savings. We recognized revenue in the quarter from our pilot plant and deferred revenue from solar panel collections, and we are now starting to see both revenue and deferred revenue increase as we move forward this year as we bring the commercial plant online and begin showcasing it to customers in June. Total operating expenses increased approximately $1.7 million, driven primarily by higher headcount supporting metals operations, higher facility costs, including our industry scale site at Silver Springs, increased professional, legal, and commercialization related spend, as we expect marketing and sales and metals expenses going forward and also associated with various monetization transactions.

[Judd Merrill, CFO at Comstock]

From a below-the-line perspective, interest expense declined significantly year over year, and that's reflecting the elimination of the legacy debt obligations. Even as of this week, we're fully extinguished with no interest expense projected going forward. Interest income increased meaningfully, driven by our strong cash position. Derivative related impacts, while still present, were less significant than in prior year and should be low to zero going forward with substantially all of our make-whole contingencies now satisfied. Net loss for the quarter was approximately $9.4 million, largely in line with prior year levels, with approximately half of that loss representing the mining and Bioleum segments, and the other half representing metals and the corporation.

[Judd Merrill, CFO at Comstock]

We expect the sale of the mining assets to reduce cash spending by up to $1.5 million annually. We also expect the resulting simplification to further reduce cost. Operationally, what matters here most is the quality and the timeliness of the execution underway. The increases that we have seen in operating expense are intentional. They reflect planned build-out of operational capacity, design and deployment of quality systems and industry scale, supporting infrastructure, including operations and sales and logistics. We're also investing in the teams and systems required to support multi-site growth. At the same time, the reduction in legacy financing, mining and administrative costs and simplification of our capital structure has begun to show through in our financials. From a liquidity and capital standpoint, we remain in a very strong position.

[Judd Merrill, CFO at Comstock]

As we previously outlined, we are funded following our recent financings. We have eliminated substantially all of our legacy obligations and associated costs, and we've closed on some smaller sales and agreed to other mining and continued advancing multiple monetizations pathways for our non-core assets, which we believe will be significant. What does this do? It positioned us to scale and operate our fully paid for first-of-a-kind industry scale facility, expand metal storage and logistic capacity in multiple states, finalize our first metal recovery designs, and pilot a 1 ton per day system, preferably at our existing location here in Nevada, and then secure permit and advance our second facility in Las Vegas. Looking forward, the financial model begins to change. As we move into 2026, we expect a shift from project-based revenue to throughput driven revenue.

[Judd Merrill, CFO at Comstock]

We expect improving unit economics as feasibilities scale. We expect the facility to be profitable at 20% utilization, and the corporation as a whole at 50% utilization. That is our focus. At the same time, we remain highly dedicated on monetizing legacy mining and real estate assets, also advancing the SSOF related opportunities, and accessing non-dilutive capital sources, including grants and industrial financing. In summary, Q1 was successfully about positioning, deployment, and readiness, and the rest of 2006 is execution at scale and monetizing our mining and real estate assets. I will now turn it over to Corrado to go deeper into our operational progress and what we are seeing on the ground at Metals. Corrado?

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

Thanks, Judd. Yeah, no, it's outstanding overview. We position ourselves to monetize these assets just as Judd has outlined. We're doing it in the mining, we're doing it in SSOF, and it's all to support the growth of metals. Let's go into metals. I know that we spoke, was it two or three weeks ago, you know, with the year-end report. I have to say that an incredible amount has occurred in the last three weeks. I've been actually looking forward to this update. You know, with metals especially, you know, we've now received, deployed, we're assembling and commissioning the facility. Many of you, as Judd said, will be out on the 28th to see it.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

Quite a few of you have come out over the last two months, you know, since January. Every time someone visits, even if it's three or four days in between or a whole week, the plant looks remarkably different. This will be not only the first industry scale, high speed, high throughput, zero landfill solution, but it will be a showcase for everyone, frankly, but most importantly, our customers. Our customers are gaining strong traction. They're strategic, they're regional, they're national. They understand as we engage them what we intend to do, but we will be able to show them as soon as June, and many have already scheduled appointments to visit in June and in July when we will be operating our first industry scale facility in Silver Springs.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

Of course, our objective, as Judd said, is to turn it profitable, ramping it up to 20% utilization, 50% utilization, and of course, we wanna run it full. We're also working on upgrading the downstream production line. You'll see the CapEx, you know, that so far has been remarkably in line with our plan, but we've also stepped downstream to enhance recoveries, specifically for glass, and we're already able to do that today. As Judd said, by the end of this year, we'd like to have a 1 ton per day fully integrated metal recovery capability. We're not using the term refining. This is the last time Fortunato said I can use the word refining. We're recovering these metals to extremely high purities.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

We are already recovering glass now to specifications that even two months ago we didn't know that we could do. The result of that, I'm gonna go into a little deeper now, but it's resulted in a number of extremely large scale companies that want to use our glass for things like, you know, fiber optics, for things like cement additives, a whole spectrum of uses. We're upgrading the production line. We're gonna be enhancing recoveries. We've shifted from frankly worrying about, you know, where is all this glass gonna find a home? We were worried about it in a professional sense. You know, we were working very diligently on finding it a home. Initially, the values of those homes were pretty low. Today, they're high and there's forces, you know, for those materials.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

That's a tremendous update, maybe one of the most salient, you know, for this discussion in the last three weeks. We've also identified our second facility. We've already submitted the permits for that facility. We met with our regulators two days ago. It's an extremely positive advance forward. We won't, as Judd said, procure equipment for our second facility until our first one's up and running, and frankly, until it's up and running and scaling up in terms of the throughput that's going through that machine. We have a nice ability to toggle that amount. You've heard from us more often than not that the silver demand and the market for silver is strong. It's driven by photovoltaics. It's driven by electronics.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

The deficit in the industry, you know, which is reasonably nascent, you know, over the last half a decade, is clearly persisting. China seems to have a bigger implication to that persistence. The outlook, of course, for silver, which, you know, exceeded 80 bucks a share, an ounce, sorry, yesterday and is hovering right about $80 an ounce today, remains very strong. Insofar as our process, the way to think about our offtake is that aluminum is steady eddy. We've been selling our aluminum cleanly, clean aluminum, since day one. It's absolutely the lowest maintenance part of our offtake stream. The tailings we've been selling, most of you know, to less than optimal refiners. I guess the good news updating there is we had previously been shipping our tailings to Asia.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

We do now have, and we have secured a boutiquey domestic offtaker. We're very happy about that because the economics are better and the logistics, of course, are much better. We always still view that as a temporary condition, you know, because we are working feverishly on our own metal recovery process, where we hope this year you'll hear us prove and demonstrate that we can recover silver from these materials. That will be the first objective for 2026, the announcement that we are recovering our own silver, you know, at a 1 ton per day pilot scale, of course, and then ultimately that we're recovering copper, that we're recovering pure silicon and silica, and then ultimately, you know, the doré of these remaining critical minerals. Couldn't be more excited about the implications of that.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

That means that we would then be fully integrated, selling all of our materials while still staying in the category of zero waste domestically and overall. The glass was the one that I had mentioned previously. We have a bake there. I'm gonna show you the equipment associated with that. Let me talk about the capital because we've been remarkably on plan here. You know, I think generally speaking, when we were talking in aggregates, we would talk about $12 million-$15 million as the ultimate capital. Judd mentioned $13 million. That's our real number for Facility #2. We spent $11 million on the facility. I'm gonna show you some pictures of it coming on, coming together here in just a minute.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

That is for all of the equipment to load a panel, crush a panel, condition a panel, sort a panel, bag it. The entire process from literally soup to nuts, that allows us those three streams. We ultimately spent another $1.1 million in power generating systems. There's there's a pretty pervasive understanding that the grids are weak, that the grids are short. We didn't plan on being supported by the grid, we have our own strong natural gas feed right into our facility. Quite frankly, the capital for these power generating systems was a hair higher than the upgrades that were originally planned for the facility off the grid. The cost of the power is actually lower. We're very happy about that. There was $2 million that's been spent.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

These are money spent that you're looking at. There's $2 million that was spent on leasehold improvements. Comstock Metals spent that money. The landlord is responsible for that money. That money will come back, you know, from the landlord. We had a need for speed, we got all that done. The building looks incredible. That includes not just building and leasehold improvements to 600 Lake Avenue, but the entirety of the storage complex, which is the number just below at $1.1 million, you see the pictures to the side of the fencing and the storage, which is all coming online. By the end of this month, many of you again will see all of that.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

If you take out the leasehold improvements, we're just at about $13 million, remarkably right on plan. Like, I have to say, the metals team has been exceptional in managing their capital budget and their capital spending. We are going to spend another $1.5 million. $0.5 million has already been spent for this product upgrade. What's happened, and I'll show you a picture of it right now. Just give me one second here. What's happened is we have been engaged with some of the largest glass manufacturers in the country, you know, and we were previously talking about using this glass for recycling, you know, bottles and tiles and vases. We're talking about fiber optics and cements.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

We're presenting our glass, which is clean of laminates, plastics, glues, and those kinds of contaminants, but still had some dust on it, still had some small shards of aluminum in it. So we assembled this eddy system that you're looking at that magnetically removes all of the metals, they're really just small traces of remaining metals, and then cleans off so that our glass meets the highest specifications of the best glass manufacturers in the country, and we're in final stages of negotiation with multiple parties. I can say frankly that all of the parties want all of our glass. So we find ourselves from a supply and demand position in a very, very good place.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

In terms of the actual facility, this is an older picture that you've seen before with the facility filled, of course, with solar panels. That's not true anymore. The facility and the leasehold improvements have substantially all been completed. The equipment is being assembled. We took pictures as we were progressing through it, just so you can get a sense of how it's laying out and how it's coming together. By the end of this month, it will certainly fully be together. Including the power generation and including the external scrubbing systems, everything is on-site and being assembled. The storage facility, as you can see, fully fenced, you know, and really laid out extremely nicely now.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

The road, the improvements are being made to the road, just alongside it so that we can, you know, transport the material super efficiently, super expediently, you know, from storage into the processing facility. A tremendous amount has been done with the core facility, with the basic three off streams. A tremendous amount has been done with upgrading, some of our offtake, especially in certainly the glass. We've also made a tremendous amount of process on our metal recovery from these materials. We have designed this process. We have finalized design of this process. We have engaged our major partners. Pilot testing, bench testing is being done in a distributed fashion.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

As Judd said, we expect it all to come together into an integrated 1 ton per day solution that we would prefer to have right at the 600 lake facility. That was what our meeting earlier this week with our regulators was about, I couldn't have been happier, you know, with the outcome of those discussions. I wanted to show you the market as well. We're making continued progress with the market. We're making progress with strategic customers. We're engaged with strategic customers, both in terms of customer agreements, master service agreements, and even in some cases, co-locating and joint potentially operating agreements. Those are fascinating. I think this picture that everyone has seen before shows how clearly California, Arizona, and Nevada represent the oldest panels, the largest end-of-life market in the country.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

The next map that you're about to see was updated. This map that you're looking at is two years old. The map that you're about to see, California, Nevada, Arizona, is presented identically, but you start to see what's happening in the rest of the country. Just in the last two years, the expanded deployments across the southern part of the U.S., up the eastern seaboard and even into the mid-Atlantic, you know, and northern Midwest have been remarkable. A part of this is what's happened in the last two years. Quite frankly, part of this is improvement of data, but you can see that this is not a regional play. The market is big. People always ask me, "Well, what about, you know, new deployments?

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

You know, the solar industry has really hit some headwinds, hasn't it?" My first reaction to that comment is we care less about what's being deployed today because we're end of life. Our market is the end of life. Rest assured, look at the projects that are under development. It doesn't seem or feel like, you know, the solar industry has hit a wall. It certainly has some headwinds politically and otherwise, but it's a relative statement. To imagine that there isn't wide-scale deployment happening is certainly incorrect. We're stable with our projections. We feel very good about what this facility looks like running at 90% utilization. We feel really good about the ability to capture high yields of our silver.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

You know, once it's really the first step in our recovery process is to start recovering our own silver. We want that to be over 90%, you know, and with these higher silver prices, our metal recoveries start looking just as good, if not better, than our tipping fees. This is the thesis. This is what we're working towards. This does not include, you know, higher recoveries of our own metals. This only includes the sale of glass, the sale of aluminum, and the sale of those tailings. I wanna pivot to Sierra Springs just for a couple of updates. Just as much, if not more, has happened here than even what's happening with the metals business.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

I think we can assure people Judd is fully dedicated to the monetization and sale of all of our mining assets. Those, we're in a diligence and close mode. That's very big news. It's very good news. We cannot share any details until the definitive agreements are done signed, sealed, and delivered. As Judd said, we expect that with high probability in the third quarter. The Sierra Springs opportunity, we are deploying capital to Sierra Springs. We allocated the specific capital to Sierra Springs. Their board and our board have approved a path to controlling this enterprise. The reason that we want to control this enterprise is because we were successful in securing power for this land. I can't think of a stronger market to be selling or monetizing into.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

I was gonna say, I can't think of a better marketplace to be right now today in the world than critical minerals. This demand for powered land is generational. It's exceptional. We're sitting on something that with power comes high value. It's not only that we're sitting in a very widely recognized, highly attractive area for these data centers and these businesses, and everyone that's listed here is already here. Not to mention the ones that we're talking to that want to come. It sits right in immediate proximity of all of the development that is occurring.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

When we used to say immediate proximity, we were saying, 10 minutes up the road to Google, 12 minutes up the road to Switch, 15 minutes up the road to Apple. That immediate proximity now is right across the street from our properties. When we committed to essentially up to 300 MW of power, we put ourselves in a position with potentially 800 acres, 900 acres of land, to be monetizing, right alongside what Microsoft, what Tract, and what many of these other land power compute enterprises are doing. We do not wanna become a land developer. We do not want to be a land power compute company. We wanna monetize these properties at the highest value.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

If there was a marginal increase between powered land and unpowered land, which was probably true three years ago, when anyone and their mother could submit to the local public utility and get power, it's not true today. It's not true today. Today, if the land isn't powered, there's very little interest in the land. If the land is powered, I mean, people are literally kicking your door down and fighting each other, you know, to get in. We have some work to do to perfect and secure the land. That's why we're putting capital in.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

By perfecting and securing the land, what I mean is, with the same dollars, we not only get control of the entity, meaning greater than 50%, but we have all of the land, the titles, the water rights, and power secured, debt-free, obligation-free, that we can then market to a major counterparty. When a company like Tract is quoted saying that they're spending $100 billion in this region in the next 10 years, you only have to come and visit us to see the 1,100 acre development that is underway by Tract on the Peru Shelf. You only have to come visit us to see the 1,500 acre development that's underway between us and the Peru Shelf. Peru Shelf's only 12 minutes away, in between us and them is another six minutes, you know, partway there.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

This is all happening right up the road. Their third development is right across the street from us. Powered land means everything. In fact, we've learned that talking about the land per acre is frankly a misnomer. What these enterprises do is talk about the land per megawatt. You need the land. You need roads. You need, you know, conventional infrastructure. We have that. Preferably, you want flat land. You know, everything that we're seeing developing around us is expending extraordinary dollars to flatten mountains, it feels like, it seems like, it looks like. Our lands are flat. They're much more valuable in that context. You need power. Power enables everything. Powered land drives the valuation. We're not paying per acre, we're paying per megawatt. How much are you paying per megawatt?

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

A lot. A lot, right? These valuations are getting very, very interesting to us. I will say in closing that the metals business will be commissioned. By the end of this month, you will see a fully connected, fully assembled plant. By June, it'll be operating. By July, it'll be operating continuously. We're on track with that, Q2 operations and then ramping up. A few months later than we originally hoped, but on track nonetheless to be operating in Q2, and it's a showcase. We're gonna be very proud not only to show you how it operates, but we're even prouder now with the customers that are offtaking all of our materials. That's exciting.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

We will not trigger the purchase of equipment, you know, until we are really satisfied with everything we see on serial number one and with the flow of panels that are going through serial number one. That doesn't mean we haven't secured site two. That doesn't mean it isn't efficient and intelligent to start the permitting, but you don't have to pull the trigger on the capital until the market, you know, the market suggests it's the right thing to do. We will expect, we very strongly expect to announce the mining transaction in the third quarter, get that wrapped up and completed. As Judd said, we're gonna get cash, we're gonna retain upside, we're gonna reduce cost, and we're gonna simplify the company dramatically. We expect news in the third quarter on Sierra Springs.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

Transactionally, that's not synonymous with it will be sold. We don't believe that it will happen that quickly, but we do believe it will be positioned, and we will be engaged with meaningful counterparties to that end. As I said last time, I do expect, you know, from there, you know, the 100 days, 120 days, we should have a lot of clarity on what the monetization strategy look like. The options since we last spoke are bigger, they're broader, and they're more probable. The work there has been exceptional. For anyone that's been out since January, and there's been many of you, including our new directors, which I really appreciate taking the time to literally walk the earth, walk the plants, walk the projects.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

There is a strong level of excitement about what's happening. What's our end game? Our end game is to monetize mining assets, monetize Sierra Springs in the most intelligent way, you know, and enable our treasury to fund what is really turning out to be more than just a solar panel recycling business. That's what it is, but it's an industrial material business extraordinaire. Let me pause there, I think, Zach, and we can go to questions.

[Zach Spencer, Treasurer and Corporate Secretary at Comstock]

Thank you, Corrado. As I mentioned at the beginning of the call, we received more than 25 questions prior to the call. I can see that we have quite a number of additional questions coming through Zoom.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

Right.

[Zach Spencer, Treasurer and Corporate Secretary at Comstock]

Corrado and Judd, our first question is: What are your future plans for your mineral and mining properties?

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

I think as we said there, we're selling them. I think, you know, we were careful with our words previously. We used to say monetize, and we thought there could be joint ventures. We thought there could be earn-ins. You know, those are behind us. We have a clear path to full sale. Now, full sale will mean we get cash and, as Judd said, meaningful. We may get some upside with equity. We most certainly will get upside with royalties. We feel really good about what that value looks like to us. We also feel even better about redeploying that capital into our solar recycling business.

[Zach Spencer, Treasurer and Corporate Secretary at Comstock]

Thank you, Corrado. The next question is on Comstock Metals. Your competitors have publicly announced more than 15 grams per panel of silver. Can LODE confirm how much silver they are currently extracting per panel, not the theoretical maximum?

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

Yeah. Yeah. Our competitors say a lot of things. I think that it's very right to say, you know, 16, 17, 18 grams per panel. We're literally consistently seeing that for the majority of panels. Thin-film panels, Zach, much less, okay? Much less in the thin-film panels. Much less weight in the thin-film panels. We're also getting in some cases, you know, wafers of rejected material for manufacturing clients that just have silver and silicon. It varies, but for the substantial majority, you know, we're talking about, you know, half an ounce per panel. You know, you call it 16, 17, 18, you know, grams per panel. It's pretty steady eddy.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

Our objective is to recover a very, very high percentage of that number. What does that mean? Like, over 90%. Today we're generating tailings, you know, silicon, silica, a lot of silver in it. We're sending those to a refinery. You know, in the future we wanna be recovering those metals. We don't wanna be getting paid for, you know, 45% or 50% of the silver. We wanna recover and get paid for 90+% of the silver. When there's dust escaping or let's say residual on the glass, guess what? There's silver in that dust. The upgrading of the glass results in the capturing and recovery of more dust, and that means more silver.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

We expect to, you know, start at a reasonably high recovery and then just continuously improve and continuously capture and continuously improve the recovery, you know, of those, of those minerals. I don't, I don't know. Like, you know, if there's a lot of variation, you know, depending on the types of panels. Once we start operating the machine, we'll be able to estimate the percentage that we're capturing, and we'll be able to focus on Look, the pursuit is to the theoretical maximum that people might dismiss the theoretical maximum, you know, as hogwash, but if you don't know what the theoretical maximum is, you don't have anything to strive for. It'll be good to know what we're actually recovering and then just continuing to strive.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

You can never reach the theoretical maximum, of course, but we strive for that. Those two numbers, what we're actually recovering versus what we ultimately recover, is what we would be reporting once we get into fuller operations. Understanding this is a first of a kind operation, we don't know the answer yet.

[Zach Spencer, Treasurer and Corporate Secretary at Comstock]

Thank you, Corrado. How much of the company's anticipated solar panel feedstock supply is already secured through long-term customer agreements? What level of visibility does management have into future volumes?

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

We spent a lot of time talking about this, even when our new directors visited a few weeks ago. You know, it is the number one least certain item, to be clear. It's the number one least certain item. Saying it just like that isn't fair because we're signing master service agreements with large customers. We're working with companies that are very, very serious about how they manage their environmental liabilities. They show us that seriousness by paying us a tipping fee. They also show us that seriousness by wanting to see certificates of destruction, you know, very, very quickly. For us, bringing this system online, you know, starts to move major amounts of material. Let's talk about that first low threshold that Judd mentioned at 20%.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

You know, if you're talking about operating at 20% capacity, you're talking about moving 2,000 tons of material per, 2,000 tons of material per month, okay? We've got, you know, upwards to 6,000+ tons of material sitting there, anxious and excited to start processing once the machine gets up and running, you know. You know, we feel very comfortable that the business and the customers that we have would sustain that level. That level is not exciting, okay? It's kind of like a minimum threshold that we want to sustain first and foremost. Neither is it a layup, right?

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

Like, we need to continue to work to bring those panels in, you know, and then to grow those panels up to much, much higher utilizations. So 2,000 panels a month, you know, I think certainly out of the chute for three months is just sitting there, you know, waiting to be processed. We would probably do it at that lower rate because as we're ramping up, you know, we're debugging, we're optimizing, we're tweaking, you know, and then we'll let the market, you know, let us grow from there. It's the, you know, how much visibility do we have? We have, you know, three, four, five months worth of visibility, you know.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

Once the machine comes online, once the panels start flowing, that will increase, and that will improve, you know, as we move forward. I guess the most risk-satisfying point is the utilization doesn't need to be that high. That is not in any way, shape, or form meant to suggest we don't want it to be very high.

[Zach Spencer, Treasurer and Corporate Secretary at Comstock]

Corrado, how confident are you that the new equipment will run without any problems?

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

We feel good about all the equipment. Let me say that, pedantically, specifically. Each stage of our production, from the main crushing systems to the conditioning ovens to the secondary shredding and separating systems, each one of those is using the same engineers, the same manufacturer, the same supplier that we did and operated in the demonstration facility for over two years. We're coming onto two and a quarter years now. That's good, but even better is the scale that we're operating the machine now. You know, the 20 times scale from the demo to where we are today is a scale that Fortunato has operated with in past lives and past companies.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

Even though this is the first time that this scale is being applied to solar panels, it is not the first time that this scale is being applied to other materials. Look, there's always bugs, there's always hiccups, but we generally are excited to get going and get operating, and we certainly don't see any fatal flaws, but we do expect hiccups and bumps, but, like, nothing that's going to really derail, you know, our commercial process.

[Zach Spencer, Treasurer and Corporate Secretary at Comstock]

Thank you. Are you able to provide fiscal year guidance on revenue?

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

We have not provided specific guidance. There are some people out there talking. You know, I think I wanna stick with, look, we're gonna be processing 2,000 tons a month to start off. Once we get two or three months, you know, under our belt, once we've got further customer channel check, once we've got further customer visits, a lot of our customers, you know, have a box to check, which is to see this machine operating. You know, I think it'll, we'll have much better guidance to come out from there.

[Zach Spencer, Treasurer and Corporate Secretary at Comstock]

Okay, moving on to SSOF. Regarding the Sierra Springs properties, how do we best think about valuation of these assets?

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

This is, you know, this is where we've been talking, you know, prices per square foot of land. I can say to you that the numbers that we justify our actions are single-digit prices per square foot of land. We see the market for powered land in our immediate localities, you know, us and the surrounding communities that are doing this now in double digits. That's right there a remarkable thing that, you know, we're investing at below single digit thresholds where we expect fully to get above double digit, you know, threshold in prices per square foot.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

What we're hearing and learning from the market, you know, is that if you're a private company with small, you know, megawatts, I mean, if you don't have megawatts, you're not in the conversation. If you're talking 5 MW, 10 MW, 15 MW, 20 MW, you know, you're looking at, you know, people looking at the value of what you're delivering in the half a million to, I don't know, three-quarters of a million per megawatt kind of a range. If you're into bigger scale, 100 MW, 200 MW, 300 MW, you know, God willing, you know, 900 to a GW, you're talking about $1 million-$4 million MW. Those numbers are staggering, okay.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

If you're talking about public entities with that kind of leverage, you're talking about high value, and this is exactly what our expectation is starting to elevate for, you know, Sierra Springs. People say, "Well, my God. If that's real, then, you know, this thing's worth more than your whole market cap." Well, that's what we're fixing, you know, correct here with this thing, and that's why we feel we need to monetize it because other people just, you know, it. You know, people have to come in and validate it. People have to come in and transact it for anybody to believe that it's real.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

We've got a remarkable amount of subject matter experts now coming in to give us, you know, second and third opinions on this position, and I can tell you the positions are very good. It's in progress. I've spent more time in the last three weeks on this than I've spent in the last, you know, 30 weeks on it, and it feels very good. Finally things are moving. I credit some of our directors to step in and support in helping me with this. I credit Judd for stepping in and helping to support me with this. It's not a one-man show. We're moving, we're moving very strong and the partners are, you know, I wanna say lining up, but I feel like they're circling the wagons.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

You know, it's really gaining traction here. I don't wanna sound super over-optimistic. It's very complex. It's very detailed work. It's very diligent counterparties. I guess rest assured that we're doing the work to the level of detail and diligence that will meet their threshold for transacting, and we're pretty excited about that.

[Zach Spencer, Treasurer and Corporate Secretary at Comstock]

With land sales, where will the capital be used?

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

Our singular objective is to fund the growth, hopefully exponential growth of our metals business. This is gonna be a national evolving to an international industrial materials company. An entire supply chain is being constructed. One of the things that probably we haven't spoken about is the logistics network that the metals team is building. You know, our plant managers out in California, our plant managers out in Ohio, we're coordinating logistics. We're coordinating customers. We're coordinating suppliers, you know, and the supply chains are outstanding. I mean, we've got some customers in the case of glass, not only was it pleasantly surprising that we're dealing with some of the largest glass manufacturers in the country.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

It was really pleasantly surprising that they have plants, in some cases, within 30 minutes of our location. You know, glass, you know, glass doesn't travel far. When you're getting paid $20, $30, $40 a ton for something, you can't send it very far. Things are falling into place here, you know, you know, very well. Number one place, Zach, is the growth of the metals business. Ideally, except for the money that we're spending to perfect the position in Sierra Springs and perfect the power going to those lands to enable those high values, except for that money, it's all metals. Monetize mining, you know, redeploy to metals. Monetize SSOF, redeploy to metals. That's the ideal scenario. You know, we're not funding Bioleum as we speak today.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

You know, that's the, you know, that's the elephant in the room. We're not funding Bioleum today. They have a runway to the end of the summer, you know, as they're raising their capital. I feel good about them raising their capital, but we're paying very, very close attention to that, right? It's a big investment. It's a meaningful value, and we feel good about the team doing that. Right now we have no plans to fund anything other than metals and SSOF so that it can be monetized for metals. I hope that's clear.

[Zach Spencer, Treasurer and Corporate Secretary at Comstock]

Yes, it is. Thank you, Corrado. Can you provide an update on Bioleum and what you expect from the investment going forward?

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

I just will say two very, very salient things about Bioleum. Number one is that the bottleneck in that industry is feedstock. The bottleneck in that industry is feedstock. It's singularly the problem of the renewable fuel industry is there's only so much soybean and vegetable oils and so much used cooking oils. The government wants 16 billion gal in the U.S. of renewable diesel and fuel, and there's only 4 billion being produced because there's not enough of those fats, oils, and greases. Full stop. What does Bioleum do? It takes the most abundant woody biomass, and it converts it into the highest-yielding, lowest cost, lowest CI score oils for feedstock. It does it with a dedicated crop from Hexas Biomass. We have not only the most lowest cost, but the most reliable feedstock source.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

That is a very easy pitch to make, in my opinion, to the capital markets. That pitch did not exist before a few months ago because Hexas only came online in December, and it's taken them a couple of three months to fully integrate Hexas into the solution. Now they have something that I think is completely differentiated, you know, and strong. That, you know, that's, you know, that's the number one, you know, salient point, you know, about Bioleum. The other one is they just simply need, you know, to attract the right type of right investors, you know, into that solution. To answer your question, we would like them to, you know, get through a Series B and then go public.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

When they get through a Series B and then they go public, then they are a liquid investment, you know, that we have a lot of flexibility in how we monetize. Is it possible that there's an attraction to that technology, that there's attraction to that asset, and they get acquired? That's also very possible, okay? Their route right now is, you know, Series A, Series B, IPO. You know, I think they have a really good track to do that. The less dependency they need from us to do that, the happier we are because we have a global industrial supply chain that we're building for our metals business.

[Zach Spencer, Treasurer and Corporate Secretary at Comstock]

Thank you for that, Corrado. Can you highlight capital spending for 2026?

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

Yes. I think Judd mentioned the $14 million was spent for the first facility. That's done. Everything is in place. We're waiting for the last few oven deliveries. These ovens are massive. The oven, and ovens were scheduled to come last, you know, we're constantly synchronizing those deliveries. Everything's arrived. Many of the oven components arrived. They're coming in like every other day, right? By the end of May, you know, not only do we expect everything to be there and assembled, that money spent. We're gonna spend another $1.5 million for upgrading for this glass system. We spent some of that already.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

The rest of it's already been ordered because these big glass companies, they say, "Hey, once you start shipping us this glass, you better not stop," right? We've got some really big and exciting customers now that we're going to service with these materials. We will spend $10 million towards a 1 ton per day fully integrated metal recovery system, formerly known as refining. 1 ton per day metal recovery system that will start producing silver, copper, aluminum, silicon metal, and also, you know, dorés of very critical minerals. I don't want to dismiss the silica and the silicon metal because think about this, 1 ton per day. If you have 1 ton per day, and Fortunato is able to extract 1 lbs of metal, we're gonna be extremely happy.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

If you extract a pound of metal, you still have 1,999 lbs of material. Almost all of that is silica glass, silicon metal. If we get that to specification grades that the market's looking for, we're selling 100% of everything. It's exactly what our thesis is. That's exactly what our marketing is. The values that that will portend when we're recovering all the metals are multiples. You know, we're really looking to get that done. Of that $10 million, Zach, some of it is the equipment, okay? It almost always and almost always, and I would say almost certainly in our case, manifests itself as R&D expense.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

Even if you've got tanks and recovery cells and washers and separators, it's gonna be R&D expense. Once we've proven the 1 ton a day, parts of that stuff will go into labs and then we'll start building a 25 ton per day system, which would be more akin to the demonstration facility that we've been operating for over two years for the solar recycling. Then once that's proven out and the final investment decision is achieved, we'd go to like a 250 ton a day, which would be an industry scale, first of its kind metal recovery facility in the United States.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

To your question, $1.5 Million will be spent for upgrading downstream. $10 million will be spent, we think of it as investment in a 1 ton per day recovery system. The GAAP accountants will call it R&D expense. You know, then we will not pull the trigger on Facility #2 purchases until we're satisfied with the ramp up of Facility #1. You know, originally we were thinking, you know, that could, that could be early like May or June, we really feel now that the earliest it would be would be August or September, it could be later, we're not in a hurry, right? What we're in a hurry to do is ramp up Facility #1 and turn this whole damn thing profitable.

[Zach Spencer, Treasurer and Corporate Secretary at Comstock]

Thank you, Corrado. We're coming up on time, and I think we've covered all of the important questions. If we did not get to your question, please send it to ir@comstockinc.com, and we'll do our best to respond either directly or we'll post the response on X. For anyone who is not following us on X, our main account is at Comstock Inc. Please follow us. Corrado, before we wrap up, please give us some final thoughts for the remainder of Q2 as well as overall 2026 objectives.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

Yeah, I think I have the, you know, we're in a great situation where I get to say that in 21 days we're gonna be speaking again. You know, in 21 days, at the Annual General Meeting, we've already got like 50+ people registered, so it's gonna be a great day. We're gonna take a tour of the facility. You're gonna see the showcase. Also, if you haven't registered for that, the deadline is like three days away. Please make sure you register, otherwise we're gonna have to close that off. Logistically, we won't be able to handle it if people are still registering. If you've gotten your proxies, you know, please vote. You know, we really would like, you know, we're locked and loaded.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

You know, our board, our management team, you know, our balance sheet, we're locked and loaded. It's all about execution. We will not only speak three weeks from now about more execution, we will show you the visuals of that showcase and that plant coming online. You know, Zach, from there, it's all about the panel flow, right? The panel flow coming in, the product sales going out, like, you know, like a normal, you know, real company. We're looking forward to that. Looking forward to seeing everybody, May 28th as well.

[Zach Spencer, Treasurer and Corporate Secretary at Comstock]

Definitely. Thank you, Corrado. That concludes Comstock's first quarter 2026 earnings call and business update. Thank you for joining us.

[Corrado De Gasperis, CEO at Comstock]

Thanks everyone. Speak soon.

Participants

Executives

• Corrado De Gasperis, CEO
• Judd Merrill, CFO
• Zach Spencer, Treasurer and Corporate Secretary