Atex Resources (TSXV:ATX) - A Monster in the Making
I have recently been loading the boat on Atex Resources (TSXV:ATX) in the open market. I am EXTREMELY bullish on this one.
Although this is a long term play for me, I think it could have some torque in the near term with the recent assay result that came out, another assay in the next couple of weeks, and two more ongoing drill holes.
A bit of background on Atex….
Atex Resources is focused on the Valeriano Project which is located right in the heart of elephant country (The Link Belt), near the likes of some major copper deposits including Filo Mining’s Filo de Sol project.
The Link Belt hosts a number of major copper gold porphyry deposits at various stages of development including:
Valeriano, ATEX Resources
El Encierro, Antofagasta/Barrick Gold
Filo del Sol, Filo Mining
Josemaria, Lundin Mining
Los Helados, NGEX Minerals/JX Nippon
La Fortuna, Teck Resources/Newmont
The Valeriano Project is a large porphyry-style copper deposit with an inferred resource of: 3.90 B lbs. Cu and 1.84 M oz Au, but more importantly, the project has massive exploration upside and is already starting to show that via the drill bit.
Valeriano has been hitting some incredible drill intersections including:
VALDD-14: 1,194 metres grading 0.73% copper equivalent including 272m of 1.00% CuEq
ATXD-17: 1,160 metres grading 0.78% copper equivalent including 550 metres of 1.03% CuEq
ATXD-17 in particular ranks highly among the top copper intercepts in terms of %CuEq x Width over the last three years, even higher than Solaris Resources, which currently has a market cap over $900M.
Although the high-grade mineralization at Valeriano occurs at a depth over 1000m, this is a block caving project, so if certain conditions are met, would allow the company to access the mineralization at depth for relatively low cost compared with traditional underground mining methods - read more about block caving here.
The company released another assay yesterday on Hole 11A and it returned 0.63% CuEq over 1,270m - not to mention that this hole was a 200m step-out hole and also including a 0.81% CuEq cut through the same trend at Holes 14 and 17. This is over 1.2km of copper mineralization. Not a small hit and further proves the massive scale of this deposit.
More importantly, the strongest and most positive takeaway from the news release yesterday is the information related to the ongoing Hole 11B, which has intercepted early-stage porphyry along a previously unidentified trend.
It seems retail thought the news was negative (likely expecting a higher grade) hence the sharp drop yesterday, while a recent note from Desjardins says it was very positive, which I personally agree with. The classic case of retail panic selling while smart money was buying. The stock is already starting to rebound sharply. Desjardins and PI Financial have been huge buyers on the stock in the open market and so have I.
The cherry on top for me with Atex Resources is that the company is backed by gold billionaire Pierre Lassonde, who is one of the most highly respected entrepreneurs in the mining industry and a +10% shareholder in Atex.
- SmallCapInvestor
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DISCLOSURE
The author owns shares of Atex Resources and may choose to buy or sell at any time without notice. The author did not receive any compensation for publishing this article.