Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Aztec Minerals (TSX-V: AZT)(OTC: AZZTF) CEO Simon Dyakowski on High-Grade Gold-Silver Intercepts in First Five Holes of Phase-Two Drill Program 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 this morning?

Simon Dyakowski: Hey, Gerardo. I'm doing very well. We put out a big news release this morning so I'm excited to come on and speak with you about it.

Gerardo Del Real: First off, congratulations! Heck of a start to this program. I saw the stock halted yesterday, which was curious. And then, of course, now this morning we know why. Let me read the headline and I'll let you go ahead and provide the context. 

The headline reads:

Aztec receives initial 2021 RC drill results from Tombstone Project in Arizona; Intersects broad and high-grade gold-silver mineralized zones; including 5.71 grams per tonne gold and 40.5 grams per tonne silver, or 6.282 grams per tonne gold equivalent, over 32.01 meters. 

These are the initial five holes of the 2021 phase-two, 20-hole, 2,900-meter RC program. Fantastic results! Congratulations, Simon.

Simon Dyakowski: Yeah, thanks very much. And these results definitely exceeded our expectations. You'll recall, last year, we got a good start on our Tombstone drilling project with three spoke patterns that we drilled along the old Contention open pit mine structure. And we hit some very compelling grades of heap leach, bulk tonnage style material. 

Highlights were 76 meters of 1.6 grams gold equivalent. In the north of the pit, we hit a high-grade zone with a highlight intersection of 15 meters of just over 7 grams gold equivalent. 

So to over double that with this 30 meters of a broad, high-grade interval of over 6 grams and over 7 grams gold equivalent was… or excuse me, with over 5 grams gold and over 6 grams of gold equivalent was better than double our best result last year. So we're thrilled.

We're extending the mineralized zone to the west now, and we're putting some size to this project here. So it's an exciting time for us. We only started drilling in Tombstone in late-April so these are our first five holes. 

The drill is still turning so we're currently on our 13th hole, and we have further results pending in the lab right now from some subsequent drilling beyond the first five holes. So it's really an exciting time for us at Aztec and at Tombstone, and we're just thrilled to have gotten these results. 

Gerardo Del Real: I think it should be pointed that along with the excellent grades, the shallowness of the mineralization; I think that's important to highlight.

Simon Dyakowski: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, this high-grade intersection starts at just… the highest-grade portion, which is 15 meters of over 12.5 grams gold equivalent… that starts at 89 meters down a 45 degree angle hole. So it's about 50 meters (40 - 50 meters) below the surface. So this really bodes well for open pit mining. 

You could almost characterize these as strong underground mining grades. And here we have them in the western pit wall of the old Contention Pit and open at-depth, I might add. So a lot for us to follow up on here. Like I said, this project is growing pretty quickly here.

Gerardo Del Real: How is it going with the labs? We've heard a lot of stories about delays and some of it COVID-related; some of it other reasons. But it seems like you are now in a sweet spot where you should have assays flowing at least every couple of weeks. Would that be accurate?

Simon Dyakowski: Yeah, we anticipate steady updates on drill results through the rest of the summer; through July and August. And for us, we ship our samples down to Hermosillo, Mexico, to a lab down there — Bureau Veritas. 

And at that particular lab, they're not backed up so we're fortunate in that regard in that we're not faced with any lengthy delays with drill results. So we don't expect to have any gaps in our news flow through the rest of July and into August, and then, of course, into our follow-up drill programs at both of our projects this fall.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent! A lot of news flow and exciting second half of the year. I know the space is going through a consolidation that I think will end soon. So I think your timing is spot on to be hitting these types of widths and grades.

Simon Dyakowski: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, gold has been… it's been a little bit challenging to watch it over the last few months. Even yesterday, we had a nice spike up through eighteen [$1,800 an ounce]. But I agree with you, it does appear to be in kind of a light year of consolidation. 

And we're well-positioned to continue to explore in an era of consolidation. But even in one of around $1,750 to $1,850 gold — it’s a fantastic gold price environment to be operating on a past-producing open pit heap leach on private land in a mining-friendly state like Arizona. 

So we'd all love to see much higher prices but we're quite happy with where things are at right now in the broader market.

Gerardo Del Real: Well said. Simon, thank you for your time and look forward to the next update.

Simon Dyakowski: Thanks a lot, Gerardo. So do I.

Gerardo Del Real: Alright, chat soon.