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Topics: Copper Stocks

Algo Grande Copper (TSX-V: ALGR)(OTCQB: ALGRF) CEO Enrico Gay on Launching Phase-2, 8,000-Meter Drill Program at High-Grade Adelita Copper-Silver-Gold Exploration Project in Sonora, Mexico

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the CEO of Algo Grande Copper — Mr. Enrico Gay. Enrico, it is great to have you on. Exciting times for Algo Grande. How are you today?

Enrico Gay: I'm doing well, Gerardo. Thank you so much for having me. Exciting times indeed. I just got back from Mexico. I was on the project for about a week and a half where we started our drill program last week.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, let's get into it. The timing couldn't be better, Enrico. We have gold appearing to have bottomed. It touched US$4,100/oz. It's sitting there at US$4,343 right now. Copper is looking strong, sitting at US$6.20/lb. Both, in my opinion, go higher in the second half of this year.

Your drill program couldn't have been timed better. You mentioned that the rig is there. The rig is turning, and I believe it's Major Drilling that's doing the work. Tell me about the targets in the program and what you're hoping to get out of it and prove to the market, because it's a pretty important drill program for the company if you succeed.

Enrico Gay: Yes, the company is at a complete inflection point. And just for your viewers, I would like to reiterate that the principal target that we're going after is a high-grade copper-silver-gold skarn.

The skarn has had about 8,000 to 10,000 meters worth of drilling into it historically. We drilled right after acquiring the project in January, and we discovered three new skarn horizons. In total, there was over 40 meters of this high-grade copper-silver-gold mineralization. If you were to put an equivalent number on it, it was on average 1.4% copper equivalent.

Now, all of the drilling that I just talked about happened in a 300-meter strike length. The skarn outcrops and goes down for about 300 meters in true depth, and it occurs in this 300-meter zone.

Our drill program in Phase 2 is targeting a 2.5-kilometer expansion corridor based on a detailed magnetic survey, a geochemical program, and geological mapping where we see the contact between the granodiorite and the limestone, which is where your skarn can take place.

That's where your fluids can travel up. So that contact is very important, and that happens to be where we're getting a magnetic anomaly, and also where we have all the surface geochemical anomalies as well.

So this is a very important time for Algo Grande Copper because it is an inflection point. We have the potential to 8X the amount of copper and silver that has been found today on the zone.

Gerardo Del Real: What kind of potential, tonnage-wise and then, frankly, grade-wise, are you hoping to be able to prove up here in 2026? At least conceptually and in-house, right?

Enrico Gay: Yes, I have to be careful, obviously, when I talk about this. We have an internal exploration model that we built with a gentleman who has built many resources for companies, some of which your audience probably knows of. I'm not going to put them in the spotlight, but we've built an internal resource model based on the drilling that has happened to date in the 300-meter zone.

We have about 13 to 15 million tonnes at 1.4% copper equivalent. And we have a 2.5-kilometer corridor. Say if we were able to hit along the entire 2.5 kilometers, that's an 8X of where we are today, but call it half of that.

If we can even prove a kilometer, for example, from 300 meters to a kilometer, we're getting pretty close to our target, our internal target, which is to get as close to, or above, 50 million tonnes of high-grade copper at 1.4% copper equivalent.

It is pretty substantial to have a high-grade project like this in Sonora, which is a copper mecca for Mexico. We're surrounded by copper mines. We're very close to the American border. Having a high-grade copper project like this that starts from surface, if we're able to get to this scale that I just mentioned, I think we'll have a lot of eyes on us.

And yes, this 8,000-meter drill program is an exploration program. We're not doing infill drilling and twinning. The idea is to really just understand the overall potential in this area and then move to Phase 3 and potentially get to a mineral resource estimate in the next year and a half to two years.

Gerardo Del Real: Anything close to that tonnage with that grade, given the infrastructure advantage that you have there, is going to catch the market's attention. When do you anticipate assays starting to come in?

Enrico Gay: We've been speaking to ALS, and we are anticipating a much faster turnaround than earlier this year. We are looking at mid-July for the first drill results. So call it, let's be conservative, the end of July.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, that goes quick. I'm really looking forward to seeing how much you're able to find and the grade that you're able to find along this 2.5-kilometer corridor that you referenced.

It has the potential to have significant scale. You're going to have to prove that up with the drill bit. I'm looking forward to getting you back on and then chatting about it. Anything to add to that, Enrico?

Enrico Gay:  I just wanted to say we're also drilling two additional targets. One is another skarn outcrop that's three kilometers away from the central zone, Cerro Grande. But there as well, we have an outcropping skarn that we followed for 300 meters, and it grades above 1% copper in some outcrop samples.

So we'll be drilling there, and that could potentially be a new discovery three kilometers away, which then will lead us to probably look at a future drill program to connect these two areas, Cerro Grande and Cerro Potrero.

And then we're also going to be drilling the Las Trancas target, which is a standalone epithermal target. We're on trend with Alamo Dorado, which is just a few kilometers away, which is the large epithermal silver mine that produced 70 million ounces of silver.

And in this same area, we took a sample that graded 1,500 g/t silver and 40% copper. We are the first ones to drill right on top of the old adit. There was an old mine here, and nobody's ever been able to drill right on top of it. There's a private landowner here, and we now have land-use agreements with him, so we're going to be able to do that for the first time.

So that's exciting as well. But of course, priority number one, all of the juice is in Cerro Grande.

Gerardo Del Real: I’m looking forward to the assays. The ‘truth machine’ will deliver what it delivers. Let's see what Mother Nature left behind. I think, again, the second half of this year for exploration companies that can make discoveries of significance is going to be very, very well rewarded. Enrico, thank you so much for your time today.

Enrico Gay: Thank you so much, Gerardo, and the whole Resource Stock Digest team.

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