AZS (ASX) Ann: New Silver Zone Found North of Mesa De Plata

Originally posted by dolcevita ↑

Yes. Agree. And I've been saying for a long time it's about the underlying volcanic source, not trying to slice and dice if the surface is economic...even without enough drill holes to quantify. I've said it about Cascada, about Promontorio and now...it's the big kahuna below we're looking for here.

One thing that Cook glosses over is saying that explorers have pretty much the same geological expertise.

I disagree and IMO it's a crucial element but one which is difficult to quantify so he leaves it out.

While I do agree with him that to a point it is "a numbers game" (and have quoted Mark Creasy many times in here as saying just that when disappointment is expressed at some drill results), I totally disagree that most exploration stocks have equivalent geological expertise.

What gives AZS the edge, above many mediocre and wannabe stocks is the marriage of highly prospective areas (which alone takes expertise and research to identify) and a crack team of geologists, with a track record who rework old assumptions with lateral thinking and modern methods.

IMO you would be hard pressed to find a team of this quality elsewhere. Look at the fact AZS manage to line up not one, but 2 JVs with mining majors (not some oddball crowd) at a time when the entire sector is out of favour and mediocre explorers are struggling.

For this reason it's not useful to characterise this as a 1,000 to one chance. I have taken issue with a notable poster in here on that very assessment.

Not with a top team like this in an area like this, which hasn't been worked over for 30 odd years and even then, in a desultory way. There is still some risk but it's nothing like this which is an exaggeration.

I like Cooke, he comes across as the opposite of a spruiker or an egomanic but I don't swallow anyone's opinion wholly. If he glosses over the point of geological expertise, it's probably because it's so difficult to characterise. How many accolades such as Explorer of the Year are awarded? Not many, so he's generalising so as to assist punters.

Put another way, if you have a team that doesn't have exploration accolades they still could be very competent so he's disregarding it as a useful measure.

I think this is a mistake. Because if like AZS, the team is selected and led by the holder of such an accolade, (a rarity) you're onto something very sound. It's far from being something to disregard.

JIMO.

PS on expertise: at the preso in Melbourne a considerable time ago, Tony R was recounting when after detecting the porphyry ore in Promontorio, he got a call from Rio within 24 hours saying "Tony, you've done it". He managed to do what nobody else had managed. This is peer to peer stuff. There is a chance that the volcanic core won't show up in the extensive IP surveys and mapping at Promontorio but the chances are probably much higher that they have. With the sampling here...what else could those silver results be than from a volcanic core? They have already indicated they think a silver ore body is down there. I'm not a blind believer, but I don't think it's good to talk down the signs either. JIMO.

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I agree with most of what you say, but a couple of things - I think you discount the amazing benefit of having a decent "at surface" resource.

Brent gives a brief example in his preso, something along the lines of "once upon a time, a 1g/t Au, at surface deposit was economic - now those at surface deposits just don't exist anymore and that 1-2g/t Au find at 150m depth just isn't economic".

Having MdP, Loma Bonita, MdPN and hopefully a ubnch of other areas of at surface mineralisation is actually a huge, huge thing. It means the cheapest of the cheap to produce. It means the project is essentially de-risked, because we don't need a huge volume (even though it already looks of decent size) to make things worthwhile.

As for the geological expertise, I think I know what he's talking about. He's saying that whilst you can probably use geological expertise to weed out about 1/3 to 1/2 the exploration companies which are essentially just lifestyle companies with no real no how, the remaining companies have "decent enough" teams that are all capable of making a decent find.

Then it really does come down to numbers game, as you often point out - numbers of drill holes in the ground, numbers of targets tested etc. There's a lot of luck in the exploration game. Having a decent team just means you increase those odds a little bit.

Think SIR (and Mr Creasey) before they discovered Nova - that was literally their last drill hole in the area, and they had peppered the geophysical anomoly and come up largely empty handed.

Also take the MdP find - that was essentially an accident by the looks of things - they were initially drilling to see what was below the vuggy siliceous cap rock and found that it was the cap rock itself that was actually mineralised.

I actually think the most important thing of all is having the right ground. There's a lot of money absolutely wasted in exploration by companies who just want to keep the flow of share holders money coming in. I'd take a company with average geologists and a great piece of land over the reverse any day.

I think that's where AZS management really nailed it, as this really is a top notch piece of real-estate.