Categories: Base Metals / Precious Metals
Topics: General Base Metals / General Precious Metals

Regulus Resources (TSX-V: REG) CEO John Black on Expanding the Mineralized Footprint and Vectoring Towards Center of AntaKori System

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the CEO of Regulus Resources, Mr. John Black. John, interesting times. How are you, sir?

John Black: I'm doing well. Happy new year, Gerardo. Good to speak with you again.

Gerardo Del Real: It's great to connect again. Happy new year to you as well. You had some news today that I wanted to get some context on. The headline reads “Regulus Extends the Mineralized Footprint at the AntaKori Copper Gold Project.” I wanted to get your take, because I know that the aim of the program was to test the various geophysical and geological targets. And obviously, of course, to expand the footprint of mineralization. It appears for my amateur take that you were successful on that front. Could you give us some context there?

John Black: Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to provide some context for these two holes. So as you aptly described, these two holes are the first two holes that we've made big step outs to the north from the principal AntaKori project. So the AntaKori project already has a fairly large resource defined, but we've, for a long period of time, always wanted to move to the north to see if we could extend that into an area that we call Anta Norte. We received those permits to be able to drill early last year, and then had a force delay due to COVID and then just got started in October, managed to get two holes in. We've got a temporary suspension on drilling right at the moment, as we work out with some of the communities on increased interest from additional communities that want some compensation for our work there, which we'll have solved pretty soon and get back to drilling.

But today, what we were able to do is put out the results from those first two holes, and we're very excited because they've demonstrated that the system, as per our beliefs, extends significantly to the north. So hole 44 and 45, as I mentioned, were big step outs. 44 was a 370 meter step out from the closest previous drilling. So this is 370 meters is the width of many ore bodies by themselves. So this is a big jump to the north to see if our system continues to extend that far north. And we hit some very encouraging results, and they're multiple intercepts of reportable copper gold mineralization in that hole that it's moderate grade mineralization. It's not the strongest mineralization. I think some in the market might've been expecting one of the top 10 type holes that we've delivered from other portions of the project. But for us, it's very encouraging to step that far out, that big of a jump out to the north and still be in significant ore grade mineralization.

45, the second hole, stepped an additional 225 meters to the north of 44 and had less reportable mineralization, but still some pretty strong alterations. Some good indications we're still in the system and increasing mineralization at depth. It had two nice hits on the bottom of that hole.

So overall, we're very thrilled with this thing, because this is the first two holes into a very large untested area. And for the first two holes, and these are quite encouraging results.

Gerardo Del Real: It's interesting to me, John, that you describe in the release that the two holes are vectoring you towards the center of the system, being located on the 100% owned claims. That's pretty significant.

John Black: It is, and the overall area that we call Anta Norte, the Anta Norte portion of the AntaKori project, it's defined really by a geophysical signature, a magnetic signature that we believe is indicative of the intrusive center that causes this mineralization. And that overall target area is about 1.3 kilometers by 1.6 kilometers.

We've just started with these first two holes testing the western edge of that, and the reason we started there was there were multiple reasons for this. It was the area that we had the best access in, and it's on a portion of ground that was referred to as the Colquirrumi JV. It's a ground that we're earning up to a 70% interest from Colquirrumi, a subsidiary company in Buenaventura.

As you might recall, to earn that 70% interest, we need to complete 7,500 meters of drilling. And at that time, we earned that 70% interest in Colquirrumi, or Buenaventura, has a one option to elect to claw back to 30% of 70% then by paying us $9 million. So we want to complete that so that we earn into the part. We'd prefer to have 70% interest, although $9 million US of non-diluted financing is always welcome as well. But we wanted to get that started. And so we chose to start in that portion of the anomaly, being aware that we might be on the western margin of the anomaly. And the results are confirming what we thought on that, is that it's, even though they're well mineralized, they're indicative that we're kind of on the edge, the outside edge of the feature, particularly 45. It looks like we're kind of defining that outer margin.

And that points us with vectors back towards the southeast, towards the center of that large 1.3 by 1.6 anomaly that defines the Anta Norte portion of the target. And that center is on 100% Regulus ground.

Originally, we felt it was important that we completed that Colquirrumi earn in, because it potentially offered us financing and we would avoid an equity dilution and diluted equity financing by doing that. That's less of a concern for us now, because as you might recall, we recently had announced a strategic partnership with Osisko, which has provided us with a large cash injection. So we're no longer as concerned about reaching that meterage right now.

So when we start drilling back up here and shortly in the near future, we will likely move at least one of the rigs out to that center onto our 100% ground, more towards the center of the anomaly.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Excellent. John, I want to thank you for the time and for the update. I'm looking forward to the drills turning once again, and hopefully we can have you back on once drilling resumes.

John Black: Yeah. That should be not too far in the future. We look very much forward to that, and we can talk more about the rest of the drill program when we get things back up and running.

Gerardo Del Real: Fantastic. Thanks again.

John Black: Okay, great. Thanks, Gerardo. Take care. Bye.