Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Cordoba Minerals (TSX-V: CDB) CEO Mario Stifano: "There Will Be Multiple Discoveries in Our District"

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Reall with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me this afternoon is Cordoba Minerals (TSX-V: CDB)(OTC: CDBMF) President and CEO, Mario Stifano. Mario, thank you so much for joining me this afternoon.

Mario Stifano: Thank you Gerardo. Thank you for having me.

Gerardo Del Real: I wanted to have you on, and first off, I want to congratulate you because Cordoba was recently named to the 2017 Over the Counter Best 50, so congrats on that.

Mario Stifano: Thank you. Look, it's a huge testament to how much Cordoba has advanced in 2016. We started the year with an C$8 million market cap, and an C$8 million project value. We're now sitting at a project value of C$250 million, and Cordoba's market cap is over C$120 million because we have a 50-50 JV with Robert Friedland's private company, High Power Exploration. It really demonstrates how much this project has captured the market's attention with these fantastic drill holes that we've been drilling.

Gerardo Del Real: Absolutely. Let's talk about that a little bit. The last time that I had you on was right on the heels of that intersection that came in at 0.9 meters of 4,440 grams per tonne gold, 10.25% copper, 24.7% zinc, and 347 grams per tonne silver. Since then, I was fortunate enough to be out in Colombia to visit the San Matias project. I got to say, the exploration upside is obvious to anybody with eyes. But what I really was impressed with was the quality of the infrastructure surrounding the project. Could you touch on that just a bit, Mario, because I think that's rally important.

Mario Stifano: Look, you hit the nail right on the head. When you're trying to build a project, the most critical thing and the most costly thing is infrastructure. If you're in a region that doesn't have infrastructure you get capex blowout because you got to build all the infrastructure. We are so lucky that we're in the middle of a district in Colombia where there's infrastructure all around us. The reason is 'cause there are two operating open pit mines 10 kilometers away, and the other one is 20 kilometers away. That's South32's Cerro Matoso, it's the world's third largest nickel mine and it's open pit. Unless you're there it's hard to understand why that infrastructure is critical. So we know, we have an economic deposit now, at Alacran, we know it's going to get bigger but we know from a comparative perspective the capex will be lower than a lot of other mines because we don't have to run power grids for 100 kilometers because we're only 10 kilometers away from the grid. We have roads all around us. We're close to the port. This is what you want to see for an open pit district.

Gerardo Del Real: Absolutely. And let's talk about how that's gonna get bigger. Now obviously on February the 1st you announced you were commencing the expanded and aggressive drill program at San Matias. Again, you're looking to follow up those CBM bains at 4,440 per tonne gold at .9 meters that you hit but you're also looking to step out on the Alacran deposit and add some tonnage there. Can you talk a little bit about the goals of the drilling program and how you see that progressing?

Mario Stifano: Right, so we currently have 2 drills on site. One drill is at Alacran and the other drill will be focused on new targets. At Alacran, when we came up with the resource, it was obvious that the resource could get bigger, it's open at depth and there's some obvious targets there that we're gonna try and extend the deposit at depth. It's open to the east up dip and there's some obvious targets there and right in the middle of the resource there's some holes that with a little bit more drilling we can include that area into resource. So we're very confident that our resource which is currently at 55 million tonnes, .7 copper, .37 gold which is about 1.1 billion pounds copper equivalent or if you think in gold ounces it's 2.4 million ounces. The gold all high-grade. We think this deposit could get bigger with additional drilling but to your point, we had a very significant game-changer when we drove the 4,400 grams gold over that .9 meters because that hole is a whole different style of mineralization that has cross-cut the main Alacran deposit.

So the easiest way to think about it, and I've been toying in my head "how do you explain this?" It's almost like having 2 mines in one. That's basically what we are seeing now at Alacran. You've got the main open pit deposit but now you may be having this high-grade gold deposit with these carbonate-base metal veins cross-cutting this main deposit. Carbonate-base metal veins, I'll use Buritica as an example, as it's in Colombia, are typically high-grade and large. Buritica is almost 10 million ounces at 10 grams gold. We are so lucky as investors in Cordoba that we have the Alacran deposit and now potentially we have a carbonate-base metal deposit within Alacran.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent, now Mario the other thing when you're standing there and you're actually looking at the deposit that really stands out is the strip ratio. You talk about maybe having, you know in the way that you explained it, possibly 2 mines in 1. When you're looking at Alacran, I mean it's clear as day that the strip ratio is so favorable. Can you chat a bit about that and explain that to those that are listening and maybe try to provide us a visual.

Mario Stifano: That's a great point. Again, because the mineralization at Alacran starts at surface and it also updips to surface. Then the northern part of Alacran is on a hillside. Basically as you start to mine this deposit, the northern part, you're almost at a 0 strip ratio. All the mineralization there is up around .9 to 1% copper equivalent. So we're quite lucky that when we start to mine Alacran we got no waste. It's all mineralized. The other key benefit we're gonna have within Alacran is because we have such a low strip ratio, and we're thinking this thing could end up being 1 to 1 strip ratio. You touched upon infrastructure and I mentioned when you have infrastructure it really reduces your capex. Well it's the same thing for strip ratio. If you have a mine that's 1 to 1 strip ratio you need significantly less mobile equipment. The trucks to move the ore and the waste is significantly less and if you have a 4 to 1 or 5 to 1 or 10 to 1 strip ratio. So everything is lining up ideally for us to have Alacran be an economic deposit.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Now my understanding of the current drilling that is ongoing is that you have 2 rigs as you mentioned earlier. Do you expect more to be mobilized here in the near future?

Mario Stifano: Yes. So what we're going to start with is 2 rigs. We expect to have another rig at Alacran shortly. We're going to focus again on some info drilling, we're going to focus on following up on those carbonate-base metal veins. Now our view is that vein cannot be isolated because we have seen some indications of some additional veins in the northern part of Alacran and we're going back now to re-look at some of those veins. So we're going to focus on the carbonate-base metal veins while at the same time trying to expand the initial resource of Alacran and then the other drill will focus on additional targets. We're going to be looking for porphyries on our porphyry trend, which is our 13 kilometer trend. We're also going to be looking for the source of mineralization in Alacran. We believe there's a porphyry there somewhere nearby we just don't yet know where it is. But we will find it and I've said this many times and I've said it in my new release: Anywhere, anytime you can see a discovery from Cordoba on our district so just continue to hold on to your seats and be prepared because there will be multiple discoveries in our district. It's not just Alacran. There are multiple discoveries to be found.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, it's going to be an exciting 2017. I'm looking forward to the drilling, I'm looking forward to the assays and I'm looking forward to seeing the project develop. Is there anything else, Mario, you'd like to ad?

Mario Stifano: No, I think that's it. Just continue to be patient here, we're very aggressive explorers, we've got the best team to find world class discoveries. I was just in South Africa looking at Robert Friedland's assets, you know, Kamoa, Kakula, Kipushi, Platreef. These are all world-class style discoveries and you know, it really brings home how important it was to bring Robert Friedland and his team into our San Matias project. Because there's no one better than Robert Friedland and his team to help us find a world-class discovery at San Matias because we know it's there. Now we've got the team to help us find it.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Mario, thank you again for your time, hopefully we have you back on soon as soon as we start getting further assay results from the new drilling.

Mario Stifano: Thank you, and I look forward to talking about our next drill results.