What have been the main developments at AntaKori over the last months?

AntaKori is a large copper-gold sulfide skarn deposit, immediately adjacent to the Tantahuatay oxide gold mine in Cajamarca. In the past year, we reached two major agreements with our neighbors: one of them with Minera Coimolache, the operator of Tantahuatay, where we created a common area of interest and we collaboratively share our exploration data to drill out the large resource that we anticipate to have in the area.  We have a second agreement with Minera Colquirrumi, a subsidiary of Buenaventura, where we can earn up to a 70% interest in an area adjacent to our property upon completing 7,500 meters of drilling. With these agreements, we have dramatically increased the footprint of our AntaKori project and we are very excited about the next phases, which will include extensive resource definition drilling in 2017.

How are you moving forward with the geology of the area?

The area is well known for high-sulphidation, volcanic-hosted oxide gold systems like Yanacocha and Tantahuatay, but in the older sedimentary basement rocks beneath these, there is a possibility for porphyry copper-gold deposits and associated skarn deposits. Cerro Corona, located 6 km from us, is a porphyry deposit which is currently in production. Previous drilling campaigns at AntaKori found extensive skarn mineralization that remains open in most directions. This style of mineralization is similar to other occurrences in Peru, most notably Las Bambas and Antamina.  At AntaKori, the skarn mineralization is cut by breccia bodies with fragments of porphyry copper-gold mineralization, indicating probably porphyry mineralization at depth. The entire system is also locally overprinted by late high-sulphidation copper-gold mineralization related to the Tantahuatay deposit.

The current resource is about 295 million mt of 0.48% copper, 0.36 g/mt gold and 10 g/mt silver. It is quite a large resource with good grade, approximately 0.8% copper equivalent, but we believe there is potential to substantially increase this resource. Our objective this year is to drill 15,000 to 18,000 meters, which should be enough to confirm the existing mineralization and make the first extension to the resource. Our objective is to prepare a new resource estimate by the end of the year.

Could the agreement with Coimolache (a JV between Southern Copper and Buenaventura) result in interest from those companies to acquire AntaKori at some point?

With the Tantahuatay mine, Coimolache have basically bumped up against our land package. It is logical for them to expand their current oxide heap leach operation into our ground. There is not much potential for oxides on our ground, but there is potential for extensive copper-gold sulphide mineralization. Our business model is to discover, demonstrate the size of, and de-risk large mineral resources. We are not miners by nature, so the logical thing to happen is that someone would acquire us.

You completed a financing for more than CAD$14 million last year. Is the market for risk exploration back?

In May last year, the agreements with our neighbors were very well received, partly because of the improving atmosphere in the market, but also because of our track-record with Antares Minerals and the Haquira discovery that we sold to First Quantum Minerals in late 2010. Based on that good response and increased share price, we did a large financing in mid-2016, which set us up with the funds to complete the drilling campaign we are initiating soon.  Market conditions have improved and now there is money available for serious projects. However, there are not that many of these projects around, which puts us in a good position to attract investor interest.

What is the advantage of being listed in the Lima Stock Exchange (BVL)?

We view it as an opportunity to find new investors, but more importantly we think that Peruvian retail and institutional investors should have easy access to invest in projects in Peru. As far as the opportunity to invest in junior companies, we have only seen one cycle in Peru: there was all the excitement at the time of the initial dual listings, but then everything dropped off, so it is natural that investors are a little bit hesitant, but we should see more interest from the local market soon.

What is your take on the recent evolution of the copper price?

It does not surprise me that the copper price is rising, although perhaps I did not expect it to happen so soon. The sharp rise in the last few months seems to be based on supply incidents in mines like Escondida and Las Bambas, and on the possibility of increased demand in the U.S. with the new presidency, and also China. Therefore, the current increase of the copper price is probably more based on speculation than copper fundamentals, but in the next few years increased demand will support a stronger copper price. Although we do not depend on an increase in metal prices to make our project viable, this upturn is good for us because it brings investors to the market and it makes access to capital a bit easier.