Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Aldebaran Resources (TSX-V: ALDE)(OTC: ADBRF) CEO John Black on Hitting 14.9 m of 19.08 g/t Au in Discovery of New High-grade Gold Zone at the Altar Copper-Gold Project, San Juan, Argentina

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the CEO of Aldebaran Resources, Mr. John Black. John, interesting day to have you on. Thank you for taking the time. How are you?

John Black: Doing well. It's a strange backdrop, with the geopolitical developments here, but we've got some exciting results from the project that we shared with everybody this morning.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, let's start there. I also want to touch on the step out hole from the 16th that you reported at the Radio porphyry target, but we have to talk about today's news. 14.9 meters of 19.08 grams per tonne gold, in a new high grade gold zone. You could call this a new discovery because of the nature of the metal that you found. I'll be quiet and let you provide the context, congrats, a heck of a hit, as I mentioned to you offline.

John Black: Well, great, we're very excited about this, but it does fit within the context of what we're doing overall. As you'll recall, at the Altar project we're drilling out a cluster of big copper gold porphyry systems. We've got two that we've already defined a really nice resource on, and much of our focus right now is on the QDM Radio zone. And the QDM Radio zone consists of an emerging copper gold porphyry system at depth, and near the surface we have a small gold resource called the QDM gold zone, where open pit models, about 600,000 ounces of gold mineralization at an open pit low strip at a little less than a gram per tonne. That type of an occurrence is commonly associated with a big copper gold porphyry, when we're in a big complex district like this we see multiple styles of mineralization. Hole 45 is a hole that was designed primarily to test the big copper gold porphyry system at depth.

But it drilled beneath the known gold mineralization on the surface, and we had a pleasant surprise to hit this high grade zone. It appears that what we're drilling is most likely a feeder zone, the type of feeder that would be the link between the copper gold system at depth and the closer to the surface gold, the only mineralization we see at QDM. Very early days, it's exciting mineralization, and for me, any time that you see an intercept that has double digit widths or lengths, and double digit grams per tonne, you pay attention. If you're over 10 meters of over 10 grams, those are the type of hits that should be popping up on people's radar, that's what caught our eye on this. Within that, sometimes when you have a 15 meter run like this, you can have that carried by one particular sample.

One of the samples in the middle of this has over 98 grams of gold, it almost 100 grams of gold per tonne. What I'm encouraged by is that it's supported by several intervals that are plus 10 meters around that. It's not just one short interval that's carrying that whole thing. In the news release, we report assay by assay so people can take a look at what that distribution's like. So not a total surprise, but by far, in a way, the best grades we've hit for gold dominant mineralization in the system. And certainly a zone that'll require some follow up. We have the interesting challenge we now have another priority target within the long list of things that we need to get done this year and probably carrying you into the next couple of years.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, it sounds like you're obviously following up to try to find additional high grade feeder structures, right? How is the rest of the program coming along?

John Black: It's moving well now after we've got four rigs going. Three of those rigs are focusing on the QDM porphyry system. The holes that we're drilling there, the other two holes that are active are not in a position to target this higher grade gold mineralization, or they're more on the other side of the porphyry doesn't mean we might not have another supply like this as we drill those. But they're really designed to see what we have at QDM Radio. As I mentioned, we have a large resource at Altar East and Altar Central, where we have 1.2 billion tonnes of 0.5 equivalent measured and indicated between those two deposits and another almost 200 million tonnes of similar grade and inferred. We have a large copper gold resource there, but at QDM currently the only resource we report is that upper gold zone, the lower copper gold and merging porphyry we see at depth, we just didn't have enough drill holes into that to report. So much of the focus right now is getting enough holes into that. So that by the end of this year, we can give the first look at what that new porphyry center looks like. And those are long holes typically to intersect that we're trying to do a spacing to get the full size of it. So we have two objectives, defining the volume of the mineralization, and then trying to encounter these higher grade zones, which really catch our eye in that deposit. So a lot of drilling to go, but now that we have four rigs up and running, I think over the next few months, you'll see us get more holes reported and have more to talk about

Gerardo Del Real: Before I let you go, John, have to talk and ask you about QDM 43, Which returned 707.1 meters of 0.51% copper equivalent, including 188 meters of 0.70% copper equivalent. This was at the Radio target. Can you provide some context on that hole?

John Black: Yeah, that's probably more what we would consider a typical hole for this program. And that what we anticipate is we'll see long runs of mineralization on this. It's a long run of very good mineralization overall. We didn't hit the higher grade zone that we see in portions of the deposit, but we're drilling off to the far east of the deposit too. So it's probably more of a volume building hole for us, whereas we'll have other holes that do that, and also intersect the higher grade core of the system. So this was, we stepped out more than a hundred meters from any adjacent hole on this and almost 200 meters from one of the holes nearby.

So it's a very significant step out to the east and adds a lot to the size of the system overall. And you'll see a mix of holes as we report more holes. That'll be ones that are trying to establish that volume and others that are doing that and also intersecting great mineralization as we go forward.

Gerardo Del Real: Interesting times globally, exciting times here. And I can't wait to see the results from the holes that are pending. It sounds like it's going to be an exciting 2022. Anything to add to that, John?

John Black: Nope. Just fun times. It's really game on in San Juan right now. We're very active. We have a number of neighboring projects that are putting out pretty interesting results as well. And there are a lot of areas where it's becoming more difficult to work in the world for exploration like ourselves, but we're very pleased to be in San Juan, Argentina right now it's both the province and the country are supporting mining and encouraging us to work and move forward. It's nice to be in an area where you have a lot of emerging, interesting projects. I think you'll very likely over the course of the next couple of years, see news of major mining companies approaching groups like ourselves that are sitting on interesting assets.

Gerardo Del Real: I was just going to say, it seems like if I was a major, I'd be looking in this part of the world right now, given the success of you and your neighbors to push for a major consolidation. I think you're spot on with that assessment and yeah, fun times, John. Can't wait to have you back on. Thank you.

John Black: Okay. Look forward to talking soon. Take care.

Gerardo Del Real: All right. You as well.