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Aztec Minerals (TSX-V: AZT)(OTC: AZZTF) CEO Simon Dyakowski on High-Grade Gold-Silver Intercepts Over Long Intervals at Flagship Tombstone Project, Arizona
Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the CEO of Aztec Minerals — Mr. Simon Dyakowski. Simon, how are you today?
Simon Dyakowski: Gerardo, I'm great. Thanks for having me on your show today.
Gerardo Del Real: Well, thanks for coming on. You and I chatted a bit off air… it's the summertime, it's the doldrums, people are out, gold is boring… but you had a heck of a release today, and we know these markets turn, right? And the key to, kind of, coming out better at the end of this consolidation period is to keep adding value. And you're doing that with the drill bit.
Let me read the headline for today's news, which was really, really, really impressive:
Aztec drilling intersects broad, high-grade gold-silver mineralized zones at the Tombstone Project, including 1.39 grams per tonne gold and 56.4 grams per tonne silver over 96 meters.
You announced assay results for five holes. You also threw a little tidbit in there that you have assays pending and there’s some visible gold (VG), which, that can mean… it is what it is… I'd rather have it than not! But I'd love to get into the release and the details.
Simon Dyakowski: Sure and thanks for that intro. The market certainly has been asleep for the last couple of months in June and July of this year. We're doing everything we can to do our part to try to wake it up with some good results.
So hopefully… one day we all get out of bed and the market is flying again! But no, we were very happy with what's been happening technically at Tombstone at our joint venture project in southeastern Arizona.
As you point out, Hole-10 was our best to-date; over 200 on the gram meter scale, and it was 96 meters of 2.2 grams gold equivalent. That represents nearly a true width. We estimate that at between 83% and 89%. So it's a very significant intersection that we drilled a full 50 meters south of the central spoke last year where our initial drilling was at Tombstone. So it's a big step-out south and to the west, and it has returned a very significant zone of mineralization for us.
And it really extends the zone of mineralization that we've been drilling the last couple of years — the Core Zone — to about 430 meters long and 150 meters wide, at least, and 100 meters deep. So it's really turning into a fairly sizable gold-silver oxide cap to the Tombstone structure that we're exploring.
Gerardo Del Real: The holes are bottoming in mineralization too, right?
Simon Dyakowski: Yeah. And, again, that's key. So we're only drilling down to about 100 meters — 150 meters in some points — focusing on this shallow target at first. But as you point out, that is a very significant factor that we're bottoming in mineralization.
So obviously, we need to drill deeper and test up on that. What we'll be doing over the next two to three months will be to complete our geological model that will integrate the shallow gold-silver mineralization that we drilled over the last couple of years and combine that with our deeper targets… our deeper “Taylor”-style CRD (carbonate replacement) targets. So it'll be a busy couple of months.
I will point out that we are still actually drilling the shallow targets at Tombstone, as we speak. We're currently on Hole-21. We have five holes in the lab right now. And as you mentioned briefly, we did disclose today that we have seen some visible gold in the chips; fine-grain visible gold.
So we have five holes in the lab; a couple of them have encountered that. And we don't want to put too much weight on that but it is worth pointing out that this was a high-grade silver district historically. And while the old-timers mined out a lot of the high-grade silver, they clearly didn't mine out all of the high-grade gold or, clearly, all of the moderate grade silver.
So while we had some surface sampling over the past few years that indicated the presence of high-grade gold… we've had some good hits… but again, we haven't yet seen any VG in the chips until fairly recently. So that is exciting and we did want to bring that to investors’ attention.
So basically, we're almost done drilling but we've only got half of the holes out. And we'll have steady updates through August and into September into that market wake-up and, hopefully, a stronger gold-price environment.
Gerardo Del Real: You have ongoing drilling; you have assays pending; you have a resource estimate that you're working towards; you're refining the geologic model. A lot to like there for a company with a market cap of… where is it today, Simon?
Simon Dyakowski: I think it's C$17 million. Setting out the cash, it's an enterprise value of something like C$16 million. So it's very cheap.
Gerardo Del Real: And we haven't even touched on Cervantes, right, the porphyry gold-copper property in Sonora… we haven't talked Cervantes. So look… a lot of value… keep at it… good work… and I suspect we'll be chatting sooner rather than later with the assays that you have pending.
Simon Dyakowski: Yes, we do hope to have an update out sometime in August on the next batch of assays. And we'll have some news on Cervantes over the next few weeks as well. So ‘stay tuned,’ I guess, is what I have to say to investors, and thanks for having me on, Gerardo.
Gerardo Del Real: Absolutely. Thank you for coming on, Simon. Appreciate it! Thank you.
Simon Dyakowski: Thanks a lot.