Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Aztec Minerals (TSX-V: AZT)(OTC: AZZTF) CEO Simon Dyakowski on Hitting High-Grade Gold 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: Hey Gerardo, thanks for having me on. Doing very well today.

Gerardo Del Real: It's good to have you back. You just announced RC drill results from the Tombstone project in Arizona. The headline reads:

1.73 grams per tonne gold and 56.2 grams per tonne silver — or 2.53 grams per tonne gold equivalent — over 64 meters.

You reported four drill holes. All of them hit near surface oxidized mineralization. I’ve got to say the hit rate and the consistency of both the width and the grade has been pretty fun to watch. I know it's a tough consolidating gold market right now. I think both of us believe that's going to change soon.

Look, the bottom line is you're doing what you're supposed to do as a company that's out exploring, which is adding value via the drill bit. So congrats on that front. I'll let you provide the context there, Simon.

Simon Dyakowski: Thanks very much. Yeah, you've hit the nail on the head there. It's a tough market the last couple of months. But the results we've been hitting have been exceeding our expectations and have really been painting a clear picture for us of a fairly extensive shallow gold oxide and silver zone at Tombstone. 

So we've now drilled 23 holes. We've reported assays from 18 of those; most recently, 15 through 18. Again, hitting some exceptional grades.

The highlight hole of this latest batch was Hole-16 as you pointed out: 64 meters of over 2.5 grams gold equivalent. To sum what we've done this season so far at Tombstone is we have really delineated now a 550 meter long, almost 200 meter wide, and down to, at some points, 150 meters deep gold oxide zone with fairly tightly spaced drill holes. You know, potentially able to produce a resource down the road on that aspect of the project. 

I'll note that all of the holes have bottomed in mineralization. Our follow-up to relate to this program will be to test oxidized gold and silver mineralization to depths below that 150 meter level all the way down to 200 meters. And as well, to tie-in some much deeper 500 to 750 meter holes testing for that Taylor CRD style target.

Exciting results for us all through the summer. I'll point out, there's still more results to come and really building up to an exciting core drilling program to follow this one up.

Gerardo Del Real: So just to be clear, these holes are bottoming in mineralization, and the mineralization is open in all directions, correct?

Simon Dyakowski: That is correct, yeah. It's still open. We have drilled down… the deepest holes have been to 150 meters. That's simply limited by the drilling technique that we're using. We look very much forward to getting in there with a drill that's capable of going deeper and tying the whole picture together.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent! I'm excited for the assays that are pending. I'm also excited about the Cervantes porphyry gold-copper property in Sonora, Mexico. Can you speak to that a bit? What's going on there, Simon?

Simon Dyakowski: Absolutely and a good question. We have been working all summer on preparing that property for drilling. We have previously announced plans to drill 5,000 meters at Cervantes. That is subject to financing, I’ll point out. However, it will be the first drilling to follow up from the discovery that Aztec made back in 2018, which tested just one of the more than 10 porphyry targets that we have on the property.

And to remind your listeners, Gerardo, that discovery was seen in 14 drill holes at the California Zone. They have not been followed up on so we will drill 14 holes at the California Zone target stepping out from that initial discovery that had very consistent mineralization highlighted by a 160 meter intersection of 0.77 grams gold equivalent.

An excellent indication of a gold oxide cap to a deeper porphyry system has not been drill-tested since. And we have a 5,000 meter program t’d up, ready to start this autumn once we have funded.

Gerardo Del Real: We talked a bit off air about how cyclical the resource space is, right? We're seeing it in uranium right now with things really taking off. You could kind of see that all of the fundamentals were lined up.

It's a very similar situation in gold and silver with the exception of the speculators and the big capital coming back in, although people are starting to position. I think $1,800 gold and $24 silver is a great floor if that indeed is the new floor. I say all of that to say, the opportunity is buying when no one's looking. What's your market cap at right now, Simon?

Simon Dyakowski: Our market cap is less than C$20 million. I think today, it was around C$18 million. There's big potential for a rerating, obviously, in a market cap of sub-C$20 million… especially for a company that has been consistently producing exceptional heap leach grade gold intersections on private land in Arizona and about to continue exploring a district scale gold-copper porphyry system in a very mining-friendly part of Sonora, Mexico.

Thinking back to 2016 was one of those times when the market was in a malaise and then, out of nowhere, recovered. And I think we're probably starting from a much stronger place with just the way the charts set up and with what's happened on the monetary policy front throughout the world. 

So it’s an exciting time to be working on our two projects coming out of a sleepy market summer. But I think everybody in the market is getting back to their desks over the next few weeks, and we should be right there with a good story to tell the market.

Gerardo Del Real: I think it's going to be an exciting Q4! Looking forward to having you back on when the remaining assays come in. Thanks a lot for the update, Simon. I appreciate it!

Simon Dyakowski: Thank you for the opportunity.

Gerardo Del Real: Chat soon.

Simon Dyakowski: Okay, thanks a lot!