Almadex Minerals (TSX-V: AMZ) CEO Morgan Poliquin Reports Another Impressive Hole of High-Grade Copper-Gold in the Norte Zone at El Cobre

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real, with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me once again is President and CEO of Almadex Minerals (TSX-V: AMZ)(OTC: AXDDF), Dr. Morgan Poliquin. Morgan, a busy couple of weeks for you. Thank you for joining me again.

Morgan Poliquin: Thank you very much for having me on again.

Gerardo Del Real: I had to have you back. I was having a discussion with a couple of gentlemen that I respect a lot, and we were talking about El Cobre, and the one question that comes up often, not just in that circle but in many circles, was the question of the grade. We’ve talked before and you’ve had some great intercepts, but this latest release are some of the highest grades that I’ve seen at the El Norte target there at El Cobre.

Let me just read the headline for some context. Almadex hits 342 meters of 0.60 grams per tonne gold, and 0.27% copper. That includes 193.3 meters of 0.93 grams per tonne gold, and 0.38% copper, and 114.6 meters of 1.33 grams per tonne gold, and 0.48% copper in hole EC-17-018 at the Norte zone. Can you comment on the assays, and comment on the grade? I’d love to hear your perspective on it, Morgan.

Morgan Poliquin: Thank you very much for the opportunity. Obviously, the headlines speak for themselves. They’re pretty exciting grades for any porphyry system, when you’re seeing +1 gram material gold in a porphyry system, you’ve got a gold-rich porphyry. And obviously it’s coming along with significant copper grades. It’s near surface. I think it compares in terms of grade, not as long an interval, reasonably with hole 12. It’s more than 200 meters above the highest hole in this section, so it’s a major step-out.

It’s updip closer to surface and as an explorationist, you’re always expecting great things, but it’s exciting nevertheless to see. It’s always a great, nice surprise when you hit the things you’re targeting. We feel that we’re early in the exploration process. We don’t fully understand, certainly when we hit the Norte zone initially, we did not understand what was controlling the high-grade, and we expected it to take a little while to target the higher grade portion of this system, and to explore where that’s going.

I think we’re understanding it hole by hole here. The mineralization is, we believe, open. The high-grade portions of the system we think are open, meaning we haven’t closed it off, and we have two drills banging away. As the holes come out over the coming weeks and months, it will become clear. We think there’s a lot more to define and find, but to get these sorts of grades near surface is a great boost for the project.

Gerardo Del Real: Absolutely. You mentioned that you have two drills turning now. Are both of those at the El Norte target? I know we’ve talked about the Villa Rica zone, which is 2 ½ kilometers by one kilometer area defined by a strong north to northwest trending magnetic chargeability high, if I’m not mistaken. I know that’s a target that’s exciting for anybody familiar with the property.

Morgan Poliquin: Yeah, both the drills are working at the Norte zone right now, and I’m glad you pointed that out. The El Cobre project is comprised of multiple porphyry centers, so some porphyry systems manifest themselves as a single point, usually a concentric zone of porphyry mineralization around a central, what we call an intrusive or a magma body that’s come up. That’s not the case with many gold-rich porphyries, and I believe El Cobre fits into that category.

Often, you find the gold-rich porphyry systems, what we call often alkalic systems, they are a separate kind of class than your typical copper system that we’re familiar with in Arizona. These gold-rich porphyries often come in clusters. They don’t come singly, and that’s certainly the case with El Cobre. We’ve identified four different areas of porphyry mineralization so far, and we think there will be additional ones.

Our prospecting recently has defined outcropping copper, gold mineralization at surface in the Villa Rica zone, and that’s two kilometers south of where we’re drilling in Norte. We’re still defining the extent of surface exposed mineralization there. We expect to be able to continue to report on those efforts prior to drilling. We think that once we’ve defined the surface expression, that will be the time to do the initial drilling, which is very soon. Villa Rica has never been drilled, and I think it speaks to the scale of mineralization. As I say, it really, to put it into plain words, is a cluster of porphyries. It’s not a single one.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent, and you have full drill permits in hand, Morgan?

Morgan Poliquin: Yes, we have holes permitted throughout the property. We have the ability to drill on all these targets, and we are focused on El Norte with two drills right now, but we have multiple drills on the project. This new prospecting, to be frank, the discovery of the outcropping mineralization of the Villa Rica zone has actually changed our drill plan, which is a good thing.

We want to be able to define it a little bit better prior to drilling, but we can drill all these targets, and we’ll do so in the next few months. In the meantime, we’re really fleshing out what’s happening in El Norte with two drills. Once we define things a little bit better, the next question will be to look at the potential for defining a resource. That’s down the tracks still. As you can see with the hole today, we’re still learning and understanding the system, and two drills are working on that.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. I know that you’re able to drill at a fraction of what most companies are able to drill, and that’s because you actually own the drills. What does the cash position look like for Almadex? Are you fully funded for the upcoming drill program?

Morgan Poliquin: We are fully funded. We raised 3 ½ million dollars recently, six weeks or so ago, and that will fund this year’s program. We are unusual in terms of our capacity to drill inexpensively, and perhaps even unique. We own our own drills. We have an employee team that operates the drills, and we drill for maybe less than, in some cases, a third of market rates for drilling. It enables us obviously to get a lot more bang for the buck, but there’s more to it than that.

Our local teams and the portable nature of our drills, it’s designed for Mexico. We’re able to move the drills around with very little disturbance and no road building required. It allows us to be very flexible, and so it’s an exciting combination to have a large porphyry system, which clearly needs a lot of drilling, and to be able to conduct that drilling on your own terms is unique.

Gerardo Del Real: I know one hole doesn’t make a deposit, as I mentioned earlier, but these are some excellent grades, and I’m looking forward to future assays. Do we anticipate news flow on that front here in the next couple of weeks, Morgan?

Morgan Poliquin: Absolutely. We expect to be able to report continuously on the drilling reports as they come in from the Norte zone, but at the same time we have another target we’re focused on, as I’ve been describing, the Villa Rica target. We’ll report results from that target two kilometers south as they come in, and we’ll certainly look forward to drilling that target in the near future as well.

Gerardo Del Real: Fantastic, sounds like an exciting year for 2017 for Almadex Minerals. Morgan, thank you again for your time, as always.

Morgan Poliquin: Thanks very much. I really appreciate it, as always.

Gerardo Del Real: Look forward to having you back on. You take care.

Morgan Poliquin: Very good, you too, bye.

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