Aldebaran: Higher Grades Emerge at the Massive Altar Deposit

0:16John Black: All right, everybody, welcome back in to Mining Stock Daily. There were just a ton of new exploration drove results out this morning. and one of those monster holes came from the San Juan province of Argentina with our friends from Albaran Resources. They do trade on the Venture Exchange with ALDE and on the OTCQX with ADBRF. That headline hole, 1 ,250 meters of 0.66 % copper equivalent, included over 500 meters of just over 1 % and another 214 meters of 1.5%. So happy to talk about this hole and the rest with CEO John Black. John, thanks so much for joining us. I know you're in an undisclosed location in Peru, but I appreciate you taking the time out with us this morning.

1:08Well, great. Thanks, Trevor. Yeah, we were really pleased to put out six new holes today. These are a combination of holes designed to convert inferred mineralization to indicated. I'd like to remind everybody that we're moving towards a pre-feasibility that we anticipate will be completed mid-next year. And an important part of that process to complete the pre-feasibility is we need to get as much of our mineralization into the measured and indicated categories as possible. So these were long holes into the main deposit areas themselves to confirm grade and improve confidence in the grade. So it's not surprising that they were good numbers, but they certainly came back as anticipated or even better.

1:50So we're quite happy to put these out. And I think it shows the strength of the deposit, both in terms of volume with these very long runs, but also with some very nice grades and portions of the deposit.

2:04John Black: John, at this stage of Altar's development, do holes like this change anything for you and Altar moving forward? They don't change anything. As I mentioned, they're really designed more to convert material to a higher degree of confidence so that we can use those in those studies. Probably the thing that changes things more than anything is these price increases that we're experiencing. Record highs in copper, again, several times this week. And that will cause us to reconsider what copper values we use as we move towards the pre-feasibility study. So the combination of confirming it's a large deposit, somewhat extending the mineralization and with higher metal prices may allow us to look at this as a larger open pit as we move forward.

2:52We're right in that process now of working up how we will move towards the pre-feasibility. Generally, when you move from a PEA to a pre-feasibility, you're just improving your estimates and refining your model. But given the nature of this deposit, we're looking at quite a number of options on how we can substantially improve that PEA as we move forward.

3:14John Black: Okay. So let's do, I want to kind of go a little bit into the economics here because that 214 meter interval was highlighted with a 1.57 % copper equivalent. It was actually like 1.5 % just copper before even considering the precious metals factor in there. And John, you've talked about those higher-grade cores within that enormous Altar system before. Do you understand how continuous are those cores becoming? And could they ultimately give you the ability to prioritize higher margin material earlier in the mine life? Absolutely. The higher-grade cores come in a couple of manners. They're generally associated with the intrusive centers.

4:00So the system overall has three intrusive centers with higher grade cores and then a cloud of lower grade material around those. And then one of those, the Altar Central deposit, has some supergene enrichment. So it's an enhancement of the grade and the upper portion. And that's material that can be as close as to the surface. It's the best grade. And it's where the initial pit will start. So that will certainly drive early economics in the project. Okay.

4:31John Black: You did mention a lot of these infill holes being conversion holes, but there's also some geotechnical purposes as well with a number of these results. And you moved towards that PFS. What are you learning from the geotechnical work about that balance between the open pit and underground mining at Altar? So far, no surprises on the geotechnica. As you point out, as we make this transition from PEA to pre-feas, we have to start considering a lot of other factors than simply just tonnage and grade. So many of these holes are designed for dual purpose, both to convert mineralization to a higher degree of confidence, but we're also collecting a lot of detailed geotechnical drilling in this.

5:15And we'll have a subsequent batch of holes out here in another few weeks. that will include more of the pure geotechnical holes. And so in some cases, they'll even be drilling out into the periphery of the deposit where we don't anticipate that we'll have mineralization. But they provide very critical information about what our slopes angles can be moving forward. In a PEA, we've assumed just industry standard slope angles to do our evaluations. We have very competent rock where we believe that we should be able to support steeper walls, but we need the data to demonstrate that. And that's exactly what we're collecting right now is both for slope stability, also a lot of information about water for the project, both in terms of do we have to dewater a pit?

6:03And if we do, how much water will we make up from that? That could be water that we don't have to acquire somewhere else. And we're beginning to do pure water-type exploration work to define where our water sources will be for the project. So quite a lot of other activity that goes into the pre-feasibility stage is a pretty exciting time for us as we make this transition from pure explorers to really mine developers moving forward here.

6:30John Black: Very good. You did kind of have to move the goalposts a little bit with that updated resource estimate because of assay lab turnaround times. Obviously, a lot of people drilling and exploring in South America right now. The market's hot. And so that's understandable. So you are kind of moving that one month out originally planned, but you're not moving the PFS target from around Q2 or Q3 of next year. So how much of that PFS work can happen in parallel, you know, despite having to move that date, expected date for the resource? Quite a lot of it happens in parallel. So it just slid back just a few weeks on that.

7:14We'd originally telegraphed for the end of Q3, and it'll be slightly into Q4 on this. But as we pointed out in the news release, that shouldn't affect our overall deadline for the pre-feasibility. Okay.

7:27John Black: All right. So a couple important months, more drill results, a resource estimate, and then leading into that PFS for Alter sometime mid-year next year here, John. So we'll continue to track this story. On another note, we did talk to Sam Lealong about two weeks ago after the closing of your Centauri spinout. That is now complete. Aldebaran shareholders did receive direct exposure to that deal. Why was that structure preferable to simply selling those assets or keeping them inside Aldebaran. I know we were kind of rehashing an old discussion, but maybe now that the deal is done, we can open that back up one more time.

8:11Yeah, really what our thought process on this was that they were assets that we didn't have the time and the personnel to dedicate to moving forward right now. And they're earlier stage assets for the most part, so they don't exactly match what our business strategy is, but they're quite valuable assets. And they're in Argentina, which is one of the hottest areas for exploration right now and an easy area to draw interest in. So we felt really that those projects deserve to have additional work moving forward. And we felt the best way was to set up a new team. And we were incredibly fortunate to identify Sam as a person to lead that as CEO of the company going forward.

8:52So we're both happy shareholders as individuals and happy shareholders as Aldebron. And keep in mind, Elder Braun still has quite a significant share position in the Centauri spinoff. So we're very pleased to see that come out well and very pleased to see those projects get the work that they deserve moving forward.

9:11John Black: All right. All right, John, let's leave it at that. Congratulations. Some great drill results. Some of the best out of Altar that I can remember. Looking forward to talking to you when another batch does come down here in the coming weeks. As you said, you are a busy man, so I'll let you go and keep it short and sweet. Thanks so much for your time. Great. Thanks, Trevor. There's a lot coming. We'll look forward to catching up with you in Beaver Creek here in a few weeks as well. It's going to be a pretty busy end of the year here. Absolutely. It always is. All right. It always is. Take care, Trevor.

9:42All right, everybody.

9:43John Black: Yeah, that's your update from Aldebaran Resources, everybody. We'll be back with more. Stay tuned. The information presented should not be considered investment advice. Mining Stock Daily and its affiliates are not responsible for any loss arising from any investment decision in connection with the material presented herein. Please do your own research or speak with a licensed financial representative before making any investment decisions.