Alianza Minerals (TSX-V: ANZ) CEO Jason Weber on Recent News from the BP, Bellview & Horsethief Projects in Nevada

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the President and CEO of Alianza Minerals (TSX-V: ANZ)(OTC: TARSF), Mr. Jason Weber. Jason, how are you today?

Jason Weber: Doing very well, thanks. And you?

Gerardo Del Real: Doing well, doing well. Getting over the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US.

You had some news last week that I wanted to catch up with you on. So let's get right to it. You retained a 100% interest in two properties, BP and the Bellview projects, and you are moving forward on the earn-in on the Horsethief Gold Project in southeast Nevada. I understand there will be a drill program there as soon as I imagine weather allows in 2020.

So first off, let's talk about BP and Bellview. Obviously, you're looking to option those projects out still, if I'm not mistaken.

Jason Weber: Yeah. The work that we did with Hochschild, our partner up until last week on those two, was very good. It was, in our eyes, very positive. Of course, when you're partnered with a big company, they have a different set of metrics that they need to meet with each program, and what's successful for us may be not quite enough for them to keep going. It's just a matter of prioritization. I think when Hochschild looks at it, BP and Bellview, they had an idea that in their minds wasn't panning out as well as it might.

And then you compare that to Horsethief, where I think what we did at Horsethief actually outperformed Hochschild's expectations, and it just becomes a matter of, well, we're going to prioritize Horsethief. That's where we're going to spend our time and effort and dollars, and let's see if we can make a discovery there.

So we're still really keen at BP and Bellview on what's developed there. There are some new targets that have come out of the work we've done. So there's something to go back. I think with a fairly easy test we'll be able to see if our theories are correct or if we're wrong. That's always the best case in our business. There's nothing worse than the gray area of being in between good and bad results and you just don't know which way to go.

Gerardo Del Real: Agreed. Let's talk about Horsethief. It's always beneficial to speculators and shareholders in the space when you have a partner of the caliber of the partner that you have on this project. And obviously, they're being very selective in the sense that they dropped two projects and decided to move forward on this one.

Can you talk about what both teams are seeing that bodes well and that has everyone excited for this drill program in 2020?

Jason Weber: Yeah, I think it comes down to the fact that when we pitched this project to them almost a year ago now, well actually over a year ago, we had an idea that this Horsethief may be analogous to the Long Canyon deposit that Newmont's now mining. It was sold by Frontier Development to Newmont back I think in 2012. And the work that we've done has only strengthened that argument.

So it's been really positive from that perspective that every test we do is another check mark for building that analogy. That's pretty rare in our business. Usually you do one piece of work and it's successful, and then maybe you might try another survey and maybe it doesn't give you a negative response, but you might not get anything useful, either to swing you for or against. Every survey, everything we've done has just strengthened that Long Canyon analogy. So I think that's got Hochschild pretty excited to get in and drill that project as soon as, like you said, weather allows.

Gerardo Del Real: Long Canyon is a hell of an analogy, if I can say. I mean, this was an asset that was sold for over a billion dollars, I believe discovered and developed by Moira Smith at the time, who now is with Liberty Gold, formerly Pilot Gold. Yeah, a heck of an analogy there. I got to believe you can't wait to get drills turning. When will that happen?

Jason Weber: Well, I'm hoping that we can get in there... I don't think we'll get in there in the first quarter of the year, but I'm hoping early in the second quarter. So maybe April, May. It just really depends on what kind of snow year they have and what the access roads are going to be like once that snow starts to melt. So hopefully it's not too bad and it goes quickly, and we can get in there on the sooner end of that time scale, but you just never know until you get to the time.

Gerardo Del Real: Agreed. Alianza is a project generator. Can we talk about what else is going on within the portfolio?

Jason Weber: Yeah, we're just in preparations for this big conference in Vancouver called the Roundup, which is a really good technical conference. You get the people that as a prospect generator you might want to market your projects to. A bunch of geologists get together and you talk about your projects, and we're actually going to be displaying a bunch of our projects that are available for option at what they call the Prospect Generators Hub.

So for a day we'll have a table set up and rocks from our various projects, maps, some audiovisual stuff as well, and we can sit and discuss these and hopefully get somebody interested on not just BP and Bellview, but we've got another project in Nevada called East Walker. I'm looking at a couple of other projects that we might want to bring on in the New Year. And then we've got quite a stable of Yukon projects that have been a bit on the back burner as we moved Haldane forward, and they're trying to get Tim optioned to Coeur. These other projects have sat, but now they're ready for us to start marketing those as well.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, thank you for taking time today, Jason. I know you're on the road. You're headed to Reno if I understand correctly. If somebody's down there and listens to this interview, how can they connect with you?

Jason Weber: Yeah, we'll be at the Golden Nugget for the AEMA Conference. It's another great technical show. It's another gathering of geologists to discuss projects and learn from each other. That conference goes all this week and, yeah, it's a really neat show, especially for those of us working in Nevada. But they'll have reps there from BC, Yukon, probably Washington State, California as well. So it'll be a good conference.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Jason, thanks for the update. We'll chat soon. Safe travels.

Jason Weber: Thank you very much. Take care.