Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Alianza Minerals (TSX-V: ANZ) CEO Jason Weber on Exploration Across the Alianza Portfolio: Twin Canyon Project in Colorado, Haldene Project in Yukon, and Horsethief, BP & Bellview Projects in Nevada

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the President and CEO of Alianza Minerals (TSX-V: ANZ)(OTC: TARSF), Mr. Jason Weber. Jason, how are you?

Jason Weber: Doing great, Gerardo. And you?

Gerardo Del Real: I am well. Thank you for asking. Ending the month here in the next week. We're still anticipating assays for Horsethief, I believe, somewhere close to the middle of October. Is that accurate, mid-October sometime?

Jason Weber: Yeah, Gerardo. That is what the indications are. That's what we're hearing from the labs, probably looking at mid-October still.

Gerardo Del Real: In the meantime, you just launched the exploration program at Twin Canyon. That, of course, is the new gold project out in Colorado. Can you give us some details?

Jason Weber: Yeah. The first phase of work we did at Twin Canyon probably went better than we could have hoped, to sum it up. We went out there to try to expand on the area that has potential for gold mineralization. Of course, with the old Charlene Mine and the very small underground operation that was ongoing there, especially back in the 1980s, we knew there was gold there. But you know, how extensive was it going to be? Was it going to be that something that you could look at as in terms of a bigger operation? 

Our program was set out to try to identify gold anomalies surrounding the mine and see if there maybe is a bigger target here. And we were able to do that. I think what's really interesting is we were also able to find the sandstone unit that hosts gold mineralization at the mine. We were able to find it elsewhere. It's quite distinctive because it's very bleached and it's got little spots of brown-black bitumen in it. We were able to find that outboard of the mine. 

So it was really encouraging. We thought while we can – and everything's still fresh in our minds – let's get back out in the field, expand that soil geochemical coverage a bit and do a little bit more prospecting, see if we can find other occurrences of the sandstone. Actually what we are finding, which was a bit of a surprise to us, we're finding that bitumen spotted sandstone in other units as well.

The mineralization could, with any luck, be more extensive than just what we call the Junction Creek Sandstone host. It may be in other units nearby as well. So really quite exciting for us. You start out on these projects with an idea and your first phase of work goes to test that idea and oftentimes you get mixed results. It looks good in some respects and in others it doesn't meet what you're trying to see. This one has exceeded in everything we've tried to do. So we're really excited to get back out there.

Gerardo Del Real: I know it's early, Jason, but it seems like this is shaping up to be somewhat of a pretty extensive system. You describe in the release anomalous gold results in both rocks and soils in excess of 3.2 square kilometers.

Jason Weber: Yeah. I think that's one of the most exciting points because the underground operation, the prospector who was mining that, we're just going off what he says he was able to get out of there. But we know that there are samples underground that are sort of 3 meters or 10 feet and sort of multi-gram, maybe 8 grams per tonne gold sort of numbers. We know it has potential for high grade, but when you look at it, it's probably going to be a lower grade target, or there's a good chance it could be.

Now you're looking at something that maybe is going to be a pit. The size, the footprint of the mineralizing system becomes important at that point. To see the gold over this wide of an area, it just gives us a little comfort that the system is bigger than what it may have first appeared and that there is potential for now two types of targets. There's the high-grade mineralization, which was the original target, as well as the lower grade, more bulk tonnage type target. For us it was really exciting to see, obviously.

Gerardo Del Real: You recently announced a $2.9 million non-brokered private placement that I know was received extremely well. How is that coming along and how do you plan to allocate the funds? I mentioned, of course, that we're waiting on assays. I got to believe that a discovery of significance at Horsethief would lead you to reallocate some of those funds that maybe were going towards Twin Canyon and put them back to a follow-up program. The way things look now, how do you plan on distributing the cash?

Jason Weber: Well, in the case of Horsethief, of course, that's partnered with Hochschild Mining and they're funding 100% of the exploration there. We really don't have to worry about applying funds to that project in the short term, for sure. 

The bulk of the financing right now is going towards our Haldene project in the Keno district in the Yukon. We'll be using that to kick off a drilling program here in October. Those funds will go towards that. We probably won't be able to spend them all before Christmas. But that just gives us a leg up to start early as we can in the new year. We can just continue on with the program as laid out and we'll just keep marching along.

We've also got some other projects in Nevada, some early stage projects, such as BP and Bellview. We would be looking to do some small programs there. We're looking somewhere in the range of $1.2 to $1.5 million that would be set aside for work on our American properties, Twin Canyon, the others in Nevada, as well as working capital for generating new targets, new ideas. Then the rest would go towards Haldene drilling over the next probably close to a year.

Gerardo Del Real: Sounds like a busy fourth quarter for you and the team over at Alianza, Jason. I want to thank you for your time. Is there anything else that you'd like to add?

Jason Weber: No. Just to say that we've had a couple rough days in the market here. But I think those of us who believe in the precious metals know that this is just a blip. I think we're getting through it and looking forward to a good fall. I think it's really good timing for us to be so busy, especially looking at gold and silver. It's a great time for Alianza.

Gerardo Del Real: Good stuff, Jason. Thanks again. Appreciate it.

Jason Weber: Thank you, Gerardo.