Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Simon Dyakowski, Aztec Minerals (TSX-V: AZT) Hits High-Grade Gold-Silver at Tombstone

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, I'd ask how you are doing today, but the stock is up over 18% on some very, very exciting drill results, so I'm going to assume that you are doing well.

Simon Dyakowski: You've assumed correctly. We're doing great. We are obviously extremely happy with the market reaction to our results, finally, and we're happy to have been able to get them out to the market before the end of the year.

Gerardo Del Real: Let's talk about those results. You announced assays for the final five drill holes from the Tombstone Project you intersected. The headline reads, 6.36 grams per tonne, gold equivalent over 7.62 meters, and 0.62 grams per tonne, gold equivalent over 140.21 meters. Can you give us some context there? And I know that one hole in particular, I believe hole 20, was drilled perpendicular to that north zone, and that leads you to believe that the widths are approximately true thickness of gold-silver mineralization, which is important, right? Oftentimes, you get 140 meters of mineralization, true width is 15% or something. Not the case with these results, and I think the market is responding accordingly.

Simon Dyakowski: Yeah, just to highlight from a high level, we are extremely pleased with the consistency of the mineralization. We have been seeing this theme of long hits of consistent low grade mineralization, starting right from surface in some parts along the contention structure, throughout the drill results of our recently completed 3,000-meter, 21-hole campaign. And as you point out, hole 20 does give investors in the market a view to some of the potential true thicknesses of the mineralized zone. So 80 meters of over a gram of gold equivalent is more than a mineable width, obviously, in a heap leach gold context.

So these five holes, we're happy that the market likes them. They are just the culmination of our phase one drilling, which was that 21 hole program. We have also now spent enough money to vest our 75% interest in the Tombstone Project, leaving just some paperwork and nominal share and cash payments to go to complete a joint venture with our partners. And we'll be good to go starting up drilling again in early 2021, and showing the market, hopefully next year, potentially, some numbers around a resource, perhaps, not perhaps but potentially, that's our goal, and how big this might be, and how the market should think about a shallow oxide gold deposit on private land in a mining-friendly state like Arizona.

Gerardo Del Real: You've done a really good job of defining the mineralized zone. And the way the news release reads, from how I understand it, that gold-silver mineralized zone now stands at 830 meters long by up to 200 meters wide, and open to the south, is that correct?

Simon Dyakowski: That's correct, yeah. So between the three spokes that we drilled ... So we budgeted our 3,000 meters accordingly. As you pointed out, the strike length now stands out approximately 830 meters open to the south, so that's quite a large area. And we obviously had to budget the drill holes in a manner that would give us some confidence in order to continue on and to have some logic behind it. So those three spokes have now given us an opportunity to drill in between them, and at closer spacings around them, which would be necessary to show how many ounces of gold and silver might be contained in mineable sections of this deposit.

But that's a long strike length, and it's very encouraging for us. It's confirmed what we had a hunch of when we acquired this project, that there was a significant low to medium grade gold and silver mineralization left over from these historic mining operations that we've referenced, from the miners from the 1800s through to the 1940s. They were in fact honed in on what they can see, silver, visible silver veins, and they left material over that would be considered in a heap leach context as almost high grade, really, and all within 150 meters of surface. So it's a great story for us to expand upon, and we were able to accomplish this with only 3,000 meters of drilling. So the next thousands of meters of drilling are really going to expand on this, and as you pointed out, it's open to the south and currently stands, this zone, at around 200 meters across.

Gerardo Del Real: Do you plan on testing those deeper, Taylor-type CRD targets along the contention structure? I know that's something, when you and I initially chatted about this project, that was, not low-hanging fruit, but obviously, the home run, right, if you're able to also prove that up on the property. You've already succeeded with the shallow oxide mineralization. You're obviously going to test extensions of what you have, but do you plan on going deeper?

Simon Dyakowski: We do. Yeah, absolutely, that is one of the plans for 2021. We have a solid foundation now with this shallow oxide gold zone to build upon, to infill, and to expand, and we will obviously do so. We have to follow up and further develop this asset from that perspective. But we do have still untested those deep CRD Taylor-style targets. And we felt that it would be a more appropriate time to drill those on the heels of a successful shallow-drilling program. And if those are successful, it adds a completely new dimension to the project. But we definitely didn't want to ignore the shallow gold potential last summer when we got started. That was the appropriate way to vest our interest, and now we have many more options on both of those targets, both the shallow and the deep targets, that we fully intend on testing both those to the fullest extent that we can over the next 12 months.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Well, it sounds like an exciting 2021, Simon. Anything else to add to that?

Simon Dyakowski: No, just that we are looking forward to getting good news flow going in the new year on both projects. We haven't talked about Cervantes today, but we did mention last week ... Or we sort of didn't mention, but we have press released that we have now finally signed our joint venture agreement with Kootenay Silver. It's formalized, and we will look to ... With Kootenay, we will look to recommence exploration activities on that project in the new year.

So we'll be busy on both projects, probably more busy at Tombstone to start, but through the end of the year, we'll have activity on both projects, lots of touch points to gain a higher market value for our two assets, and lots of different directions that they could go. So we're excited, it was a very busy 2020, and it's shaping up even in December, still, to be an even busier 2021. So we appreciate yet another opportunity to share our story with your audience, and we wish you the best for the new year.

Gerardo Del Real: Same your way, Simon. Good work in 2020, looking forward to what you deliver in 2021. Thanks, again.

Simon Dyakowski: Thank you so much. Bye.