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Almadex Minerals (TSX-V: DEX)(OTC: AAMMF) CEO Morgan Poliquin on the Advantages of having Multiple Irons in the Fire in the US, Canada and Mexico
Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the president & CEO of Almadex Minerals — Mr. Morgan Poliquin. Morgan, how are you today?
Morgan Poliquin: I'm excellent. Thank you very much. And yourself?
Gerardo Del Real: I am great. Thank you for asking. The last time that we spoke publicly, we talked about the $10 million, that's US by the way, royalty sale on a royalty that you had. It's a project that now has been permitted.
And so, obviously, I thought there was a pretty severe disconnect in the valuation that the market was assigning to Almadex Minerals and the value of not just the cash now in the portfolio but the excellent portfolio of existing royalties and projects. You just had some news announcing that you will be drilling, or that drilling is underway, at one of those projects. And there's several partner-funded projects that are being drilled.
So I wanted to have you back on just to get an overview of all the activity. It's a good time to be out busy. Copper is at US$4.50 [per pound]. Gold seems to be finding its footing at US$1,824 [per ounce] this morning. How are things, Morgan, on the project side of it?
Morgan Poliquin: Well, thanks for asking. And you're right… we are busy and there's a lot going on. We've got, really, a number of different asset bases for the company. And I think people have become aware, recently, of the royalty side of things that maybe they weren't so aware of.
The sale of the Elk royalty, I think, highlights that. We have a number of royalties in the company. But we also have an exploration project portfolio. And we have some that are optioned to other folks, which has been our traditional way of advancing things.
But we own, in the company, a number of diamond drills and have the capacity to do diamond drilling, as a result, inexpensively for our own account. And that changes the way we might approach projects. And as you know, in our history, we made a discovery at the Ixtaca deposit, which Almadex has a royalty on, through drilling with our own drills… a conceptual idea very early on. And that's what we're doing right now.
So we have a property in Mexico that we're drilling currently. And there's a portfolio of properties that we have in Mexico, Nevada, and in Canada that we would like to advance either through drilling ourselves in the way we're doing here or with partnerships. And we have a number of partnerships as well.
We were able to announce news passed along by our partner at a copper porphyry project in Nevada. And we have a number of properties optioned out to other folks that are exploring them and will continue to do so. So it's a pretty rich portfolio, and we're really excited to be as active as we are right now.
Gerardo Del Real: The project that you just started drilling is wholly-owned, right? It's, I believe, 990 hectares in San Pedro, or the San Pedro project in Jalisco, Mexico. You're looking for epithermal-style gold and silver deposits.
Obviously, with the small market cap and the strong treasury, any discovery of significance is going to lead to a pretty quick rerating higher, right? Walk me through the exploration approach here at San Pedro.
Morgan Poliquin: Yeah, this is a property we were able to acquire through staking so we own it 100%. And it's in an area of Mexico where there is a good understanding of lead deposits being located in this kind of a setting — meaning epithermal gold-silver deposits hosted in veins — and in the kind of rocks that we're exploring.
So we have an alteration zone that's been known for some time. And we have some really interesting surface rock results that we reported on; really significant results from surface. We did a soil survey and an IP survey. We are able to do all of this in-house; IP geophysical surveys.
So we have, basically, a coincidence of targets that look really interesting. And our idea is, well, let's not wait around… and let's throw a hole at it and see what it is. So that's what we're doing right now. Let's not wait for a partner. Let's not wait for somebody else to explore this. Let's drill it ourselves.
So we balance our exploration approach between drilling things ourselves when we think it's a really focused target. Or if it's a big system that maybe needs a lot of exploration to get to targeting and drilling — maybe it has nothing to do with the potential — but maybe we'll look for a partner because our premise is we can find more things and have more ideas than we can advance ourselves singularly.
So the more the merrier… the more irons in the fire. In Canada, we say, the more pucks on net. So in this case, we’re doing a preliminary conceptual drill program to see what these targets might be.
Gerardo Del Real: I encourage everyone to go to the website, which is www.almadexminerals.com. Let me say that again: almadexminerals.com.
There is an impressive portfolio of projects that Morgan and the team have been hard at work staking and developing for decades on end up and down Mexico and in other parts of the world, of course.
Morgan, thank you so much for coming on. I'm looking forward to results from the program. Again, a discovery here would be extremely consequential for shareholders and the company. So looking forward to it. Thank you so much!
Morgan Poliquin: Thank you very much for the time. Really appreciate it!
Gerardo Del Real: Alright, chat again soon. Take care.
Morgan Poliquin: Take care. Bye.
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