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ATEX Resources (TSXV: ATX) saw a significant boost in its share price Tuesday following an update to the resource estimate for the Valeriano project located in Chile’s Atacama region. The stock rose by 15.7% as of 11:55 a.m. EDT, resulting in a market capitalization of C$135.5 million.
The update showed a significant inferred mineral resource of 1.4 billion tonnes at a copper-equivalent (CuEq) grade of 0.67% (0.50 % copper, 0.20 g/t gold, 0.96 g/t silver and 63.8 g/t molybdenum), based on a cut-off grade above 0.4% copper.
The resource includes a higher-grade core within Early Porphyry (EP) totaling 200 million tonnes at 0.84% CuEq (0.62% copper, 0.29 g/t gold, 1.25 g/t silver and 55.7 g/t molybdenum at a 0.50% cut-off), further emphasizing the potential viability of the Valeriano deposit. The high-grade core remains open in multiple directions.
The new mineral resource builds on the successful execution of ATEX’s Phase II and Phase III drilling of the porphyry system at Valeriano, as all holes intersected significant copper-gold mineralization.
The results greatly expanded the dimensions of known mineralization while also extending known high-grade porphyry mineralization in the Central Trend and discovering new high-grade porphyry mineralization within the Western Trend, ATEX said.
It added the increased size of the Valeriano mineral resource represents a “globally significant discovery within an emerging porphyry district.”
The large copper-gold porphyry deposit at Valeriano is also overlain by a near-surface oxidized epithermal gold deposit, which ATEX targeted during the first phase of drilling in 2021 but is not part of the resource estimate.
According to the company, Valeriano and the adjacent El Encierro project (Antofagasta/Barrick JV), which hosts a 522-million-tonne inferred resource (0.65% copper, 0.22 g/t gold and 74 ppm molybdenum at 0.5% cut-off) are linked within a large alteration zone that extends along the projects for more than 10 kilometres along strike.
“We are especially excited by the higher-grade core of Early Porphyry within the Central and newly discovered Western Trends as this has the potential to drive faster payback within a potential underground mining scenario,” Raymond Jannas, CEO of ATEX, commented.
ATEX currently has the option to earn a 100% interest in the Valeriano project. To date, it has earned a 49% interest, having made aggregate cash payments totalling $4.25 million to the project owner and spent at least $10 million on exploration.
Pursuant to the option agreement, ATEX can earn a 100% interest in the Valeriano project by paying a further $8 million and by incurring an additional $5 million of exploration expenditures by September 2025.
