Good evening. Good morning, and welcome to this update call for the latest results from Los Helados and NGEx Minerals. My name is Robert Eriksson, and my colleague Amanda Strong from IR department in Vancouver has also joined. I'm a shared resource for the Lundin Group when it comes to investor relations and corporate communication. Today I'm just gonna host this call, and I wanted to start with reminding you all that there will be a Q&A session, questions and answers, at the end of quite a short presentation from the company.
The way it works is, on the bottom of the screen, you have your Q&A tab, and you can there write your questions, and we will make sure that they are asked to Wojtek and Bob Carmichael, who's also on this call, at the end of the presentation. Some really exciting results from Los Helados. Without any further ado, I would like to turn the floor over to Wojtek Wodzicki, who's the CEO of NGEx Minerals. Wojtek.
Thanks, Robert. Thanks for that nice introduction. I'm Wojtek Wodzicki. I'm the CEO of NGEx, and I'm here today with Bob Carmichael, whos the Vice President of Exploration for the company. The title on this slide, I think, you know, is a good summary of what this year's program is about at Los Helados. Really, it's a good summary of what today's presentation is about. Los Helados 2.0: T he Quest for High Grade. You know, really what our drill program is about and what our focus is on at Los Helados is finding the high grade portions of that system. We're gonna talk about, you know, how that program is working. We're gonna talk about some of the really exciting drill results from Hole 76 in particular.
You know, these are quite amazing results, and they just go to show a theme that I think we're seeing throughout the Vicuña District at Filo del Sol and at Los Helados as well. That theme is something that came out in the Vicuña presentation that Neil O'Brien and I did late last year. You know, that is that giant systems have a tendency to deliver surprises, and they tend to deliver more good surprises than bad. Once you get into a system where a lot of the right things have happened geologically, just good things happen. You know, something has happened in that area that's provided the plumbing and the environment for metals to be deposited. You know, once a really big system is working, you know, all sorts of things can happen.
I think the results that we're seeing from Hole 76 are a great illustration of that. Measured by grade thickness, Hole 76 is the best hole we've ever drilled at Los Helados, which is quite something because it is the 76th hole that we've drilled into that deposit. That hole tested and extended the central high-grade zone of the deposit that we knew about, and then it also drilled across, and we'll see this in some sections, tested a zone off to the west, which was kind of an isolated blob with a couple of pretty interesting hits way on the edge of our drill pattern. This drill hole, I think, starts to confirm that area as quite significant. You know, I will be making some forward-looking statements today.
This presentation is gonna be posted on our website. It should already be posted on the website, so definitely encourage you to read through that at your leisure. You know, this is the best drill hole ever at Los Helados. That photograph is from drilling earlier this year. I think what I want to start with here is just a quick review of what those results were. It was a 1400 m long drill hole. Of that, 1290 m at 0.74 copper equivalent, starting at around 110 m depth. More importantly, that interval can be broken down into subintervals.
784 m at 0.8 copper equivalent, 404 m at 1% copper equivalent, and then 142 m, and this comes from that zone to the west, which we're now calling the Fenix Zone. 142 m at 1.38%, almost 1.4 % copper equivalent. I think what's particularly noteworthy here are the final, the bottom of the hole. The last 16 m graded over 1% copper equivalent, and the last sample ran 1% copper, 0.32 gold, which is more than our average gold content at Los Helados. What's particularly interesting is that we also hit one of the highest grade silver intercepts ever.
You know, this is roughly 10 times or a bit more than 10 times our average silver content. You know, what that's telling us is that this new zone is something different than most of what we've drilled at Los Helados. You know, we're still kind of piecing together exactly what that means, but we're convinced that it's significant. Just to give you a little bit of a better sense is a very simplified section that shows the 0.7 copper equivalent grade shells kind of as we have them in the current resource. It just shows the drill holes that we've published to date. This is a section of a three-dimensional body, so those holes off on the right-hand side aren't quite as close together as they look.
They're kind of pointing in different directions. Those were the first three holes that we released, and they were testing the southern and southwestern, sorry, southeastern boundary of that high-grade zone. Those were in earlier news releases. Yesterday's news release just dealt with Hole 76, and you can see what that hole did. It tested and extended the central high-grade zone, which we've now renamed the Condor Zone, and that's just to make it easier for investors to follow results as we go forward. That same hole tested a separate high-grade zone, which we're now calling the Fenix Zone, and that's that kind of isolated blob to the west, which we're hoping is gonna grow and connect to other high-grade pieces.
This just gives you a good sense for the distribution of what we're talking about and gives you some sense for the scale. This is a little bit more of a detailed, slightly more geological section. You can see some of the previous drill holes there as the little thin black lines. You can see the overall interval, the 1,290 m of 0.74 copper equivalent. You can see the breakdown there between copper, gold, and silver. The upper part tested a gap in the Condor Zone, and that's the 400 m-404 m of about 1% copper equivalent. It then went through a mineralized gap. You know, that's slightly below the 0.7 cutoff, but there are some good numbers in that gap.
It hit this, the Fenix Zone, and you can see that there were just a few drill holes that kind of tagged little bits and pieces of that, and that's where we get, I think, some really interesting grades, you know, averaging out at 234 m of almost 1% copper equivalent and then some of the higher grade intervals that we talked about earlier, including that final sample which runs 1% copper and then that impressive silver result. It's very early days in determining the geometry and the extent of the Fenix Zone. What you can see on this section is that it's not just open at depth, but it's open upward because our previous drilling, you know, we don't really know exactly where the upward continuation of that is.
You know, it's open upward, which is maybe a little bit unusual. It's open at depth, and then it's open laterally in a couple of different directions. With the grades that we're seeing, you know, we think this can turn into something pretty significant. Some of those earlier drill holes which you see on there, which, you know, hit little bits and pieces of the Fenix Zone also returned really good grades. You know, this isn't just a one-hole test. We've got other drill holes that are, you know, that are indicative of good grades in this zone. One of our earlier holes, 28, 377 m at 0.84 copper equivalent.
Hole 34, which was actually one of our best intercepts at Los Helados with just over 100 m at 1% copper equivalent. Previously these continue to be holes and this continues to be a zone that's at the very edge of our drill pattern. In the early drilling that we did, we kind of felt that the center of gravity at Los Helados was in that Condor Zone. You know, we kind of noted these high-grade intervals.
As you can see, you know, these were drilled relatively early, and because they were kind of on what we thought were the margins of the system, we kind of, you know, said that was interesting, but we didn't really do a lot of follow-up work at that time. I think, you know, the way that we're thinking right now, you know, this is a really significant zone. It's something a little bit different, and we're interpreting this now as a separate high-grade center. That's actually quite common in this type of system. The traditional model for porphyry systems is that you have kind of one central zone with the best grade and then the mineralization and the grades kind of fading out as you go outward through the deposit.
What people are finding in more and more systems, and we're seeing, I think, very much seeing this at the Filo del Sol project, is that what's more common is that you have multiple kind of overlapping centers of high grade, and I think we're starting to see indications of that at Los Helados. I think one of the main takeaways from today is that it's, you know, it's not just about that central Condor Zone, you know, it's potentially about satellite additional kind of focal points for high-grade mineralization. You know, we're testing that. Well, we tested that with this drill hole, and then we're testing some other ideas with some of the other drill holes that are ongoing.
At this point, I just want to just ask Bob if he has anything that he'd like to add here, any detail. Okay.
I don't. I guess just highlighting that geologically the Fenix Zone is quite different from the Condor Zone. It's a different kind of breccia and, you know, I think that speaks to it being a separate zone sort of satellite to the main Condor Zone rather than just an offshoot of it.
I just want to summarize and kind of give you a map view as well of what this all looks like. You can see the overall drill pattern there. You know, from the southern end to the northern end, you know, we're looking at about a kilometer and a half. It's about a kilometer or so across. That's the 2 billion tons Indicated plus 1 billion tons of Inferred at Los Helados kind of within a 0.3 copper equivalent cutoff. But now what we're looking for are the high-grade nuggets within that overall system footprint. You can see on this that the Condor Zone is pretty central to the system, and in our previous model, you know, everything kind of faded out around it.
You can see the Fenix Zone off to the west on the left-hand side of the slide. You know, that was previously you know, an isolated blob with a couple of drill holes into it on the very south, southwestern edge of the drill pattern. The other drill holes that you see are where you see the colors, those are the previously published drill holes, 73, 74, and 75. 76 heading off to the west and testing the Fenix Zone. The drill holes that are to come are Hole 77, which again tested the southern margin of the existing Condor Zone and tested a gap in our previous drilling and tested, tried to define the southern margin a little bit better.
That's one of the holes that's still to come. Then one of the holes that we're, you know, really interested in and you know, eagerly awaiting the results of is Hole 78, which is at the very northwestern edge of our drill pattern. The distance from Hole 76 or the bottom of Hole 76 up to Hole 78 is over 700 m. This is, you know, a long way away. That target is another area where we saw a geophysical signature that was really, really similar to what we saw both above the Condor Zone and above the Fenix Zone. This was another area that had this very distinctive geological signature way on the edge of our drill pattern.
You know, the nearest drill holes are a couple hundred meters away. Some of those drill holes actually in hindsight had some pretty interesting geology. That's a really interesting drill hole that tests the idea that there may be other centers of high-grade mineralization kind of within the overall footprint of the Los Helados deposit, but you know a long way away from what we previously considered to be the center. You know, the overall program is summarized here on this slide. We've completed seven holes to date. These are long holes. You know, as you can see on Hole 76, you know, they're between 1,200 m and 1,400 m. You know, they take three weeks to a month to complete. Seven holes are completed to date.
Three more with the yellow dots are in progress, and all three of those are testing the Condor Zone and the Fenix Zone at depth. We've reported assays on four holes so far. You can see that in the next bullet point. Three holes are in progress. That's 79, 81, and 82. As I think you can see, the current drill hole really includes a mix of holes that are designed to test for extensions of the known zones and then holes like 76, 78 that are designed to test new targets where some of our geological and geophysical reinterpretation has suggested potential for satellite high-grade zones. We're very encouraged by the results to date. You know, it definitely confirms that you're gonna get surprises in these big systems.
I think, as I said earlier, what people are seeing again and again is that in these big systems there tend to be these much smaller footprint, very high-grade zones that, you know, can kind of hide in and amongst, the wide-spaced drilling that you typically do when you're trying to define, you know, kind of multi-billion ton resources as we did in the early work at Los Helados.
You know, we're seeing that same sort of phenomenon play out in the drilling that we're doing at Filo del Sol, where, you know, the Hole 41 zone, which, you know, has been a spectacular high-grade zone within that Filo system, you know, was only found as we kind of tightened up the drill spacing and started to drill deeper in the heart of that system. You know, I think, you know, this Los Helados is a different system. But, you know, I think one of the things that's important to remember is that it's exactly the same age as the Filo del Sol system.
It sits along the same Andes parallel major structure, you know, which is the plumbing system for these sorts of deposits. Geologically, there are definitely some similarities between the two systems. Los Helados is basically, you know, like Filo del Sol with the top 700 or so meters eroded off. We're into that porphyry environment, which is where some of the deeper holes at Filo are testing right now. We're encouraged by the results that we've received to date, especially the results of Hole 76. I think it really opens things up for us. Lots more to come over the coming weeks and month. We right now are planning to take a short winter break.
Just to remind you that the Southern Hemisphere winter is July, August, kind of ends in September. We're just heading into winter. You know, costs go up as winter weather rolls in. We're gonna finish these three holes that we're on. We'll take a short winter break through the heart of the winter, and then plan to resume drilling in the spring, which will be sometime between mid and late September. You know, I just want to remind everyone that Los Helados is part of the Vicuña District, you know, where Lundin Group companies have been active for many years. You know, there's a lot going on here. Continued spectacular drill results from the Filo del Sol deposit, which is 16 km south of Los Helados.
Southwest of Los Helados lies on the same major structure, and that major structure controls a number of significant deposits, Helados and Filo, and then a number of significant prospects along that structure between Los Helados and Filo, including the Potro Cliffs target, which is on NGEx ground. That's a really interesting target that's at the very north end of the Filo trend. We're applying for drilling permits for that, and with a bit of luck, we'll be able to drill that prospect late this year, early next. You know, the Josemaria deposit being pushed towards production now by Lundin Mining, you know, is located about 8 km-10 km to the south of Los Helados. That concludes my presentation.
Bob, I don't know if you'd want to add anything that I've missed. After Bob adds anything, we can open the floor for questions.
Yeah. I don't have anything specific to add, Wojtek. I think that was a pretty good summary, and we'll take any questions at this point.
Thank you, Wojtek and Bob. Very good presentation. Certainly very exciting results out of Los Helados. We have a few questions, so let's start with them right away. The first question from a shareholder is, how close are your current drilling to northern border of the NGEx concession? And is it considered likely that Los Helados deposit extends into the Caserones concession?
I mean, we don't know that for sure. I mean, the very northern drill holes that we have, that you saw on that drill pattern are very close to the boundary. I mean, I think there's a chance that the fringe of the deposit extends onto that ground. Yeah, the very northern drill holes are close to the boundary.
Thank you. The second question from the same shareholder, what is the likelihood of problems arising in relation to glacier legislation for a future development of Los Helados?
Well, I mean, all of these pictures that you see here are of Los Helados. So you can see it's pretty dry. The closest kind of tongue of a glacier is about 4 km away. It's in the lower picture. It's kind of behind that big ridge. So we're not affecting, you know, we're not affecting any glacier. You know, Los Helados is foreseen as an underground development so that, you know, it's very unlikely that it would have any impact on a glacier, where just one tongue of it is four kilometers away. We don't anticipate any problems.
Thank you, Wojtek. The next question: What are the long-term plans for this deposit? Is the goal for you to sell or take it to production? Are there any plans to work with Josemaria as Josemaria is developed?
I mean, I think one of the things I've learned over time is to make medium-term plans rather than long-term plans. I think, you know, trying to predict the actions of other companies, you know, whether that's Lundin Mining or Caserones is very difficult. People are gonna make their own decisions. I think, you know, we just have to look after NGEx's business. You know, what I see as the best thing for us to do is to build the best and most attractive resource that we possibly can. You know, that's what we're focused on right now. You know, the better the resource that we build, you know, the more robust it is, the better the grade we're able to put together.
You know, I think obviously that's going to attract the interest of other people in the region that have infrastructure, and then we'll see how that plays out. You know, it's kind of pointless to speculate about what other companies might do. You know, I think what we do is we focus on what's in our control. That's what we're doing right now, and that's the Los Helados deposit and making that as big and as high grade as nature is gonna let us let us do. We'll see where that takes us. You know, I think it's fair to say that Los Helados is centrally located, you know, in the district.
It's roughly halfway between Caserones and the future infrastructure that's gonna be built at Josemaria. It's an attractive resource. It's got some good grades. We're trying to put together the highest grade part of it, and I would anticipate that ultimate resource is gonna be attractive to lots of people. That's exactly what we want to do for NGEx shareholders.
Perfect. We have a lot of questions coming in, so let's keep going on this. What is your cash position today? What budget are you planning for the remainder of the year, and how many rigs are you planning to use? Are you adding any rigs?
Yep. I mean, for cash, I would refer the reader to our latest MD&A, which came out about a week ago. That's the most reliable measure of the cash. You know, our current drill program is more than covered by the cash that we've got in hand. Bob and I are heading down to site as soon as we finish this call, and you know, the purpose of that trip is to review this year's results and to start planning for next year's program. We don't really have a program or budget defined yet for you know, for the spring, but we'll be doing that over the next week or so.
Thank you, Wojtek. Do you consider that Los Helados project has the geological potential in terms of grades and tons to be something like the Filo del Sol deposit?
Well, they're similar but different. You know, I think Filo is a pretty unique deposit, and I would, you know, as much as I hope that, you know, we have the potential for grades like what we're seeing in the recent news release from Filo. The geological environment is a little bit different. We're looking at a deeper level of erosion. The upper, I mean, it's exactly the same kind of system at Filo. But the upper part, you know, which is where some of the very high copper and silver grades at Filo are, that's been eroded away. We're kind of looking at, you know, effectively we're looking at the roots of a Filo-type system.
You know, where we're drilling is kind of where Filo is drilling at, you know, from 700 m or 800 m on down. You know, I can't discount the potential for. I mean, that's what we're looking for. We're looking for as high a grade, a nugget within our system as we can. It's hard to predict what you're gonna hit. You know, it's not impossible that you might hit some, you know, some much better grades than what we've seen. I mean, that's kind of why we have to do the exploration. I think you have to be, you know, you have to target the areas. We've got a much better feeling for what's controlling the grade.
We can target those areas much better than we were able to in the past. The drilling is gonna tell us, you know, ultimately what grades are possible. It's difficult to speculate until you get the drill holes done. You know, big systems deliver surprises. There's a lot of metal that's moved around in the Los Helados system. Yeah, with the drilling, we'll figure out whether that's been super concentrated in some part of the deposit. You know, the potential is definitely there, but we've got to do the drilling to figure out whether, you know, where and when we have it. It's definitely possible and that's the, you know, that's what we're after here. That's why we're doing this program.
Thank you. We have a specific question on Hole 78. How deep is it currently, and what was your initial target depth for this hole?
That hole was completed. I don't remember the exact depth.
It was at 1,040 m. Our target depth was about 1,000 m on that one.
Yeah. What did we get to in that hole, Bob?
1,041 m.
Yeah.
Thank you. Here's a question on the new Fenix Zone. When will you be drilling that?
Well, one of the drill holes that we're currently drilling is targeting, you know, the bottom of that from the north. That's Hole 81. So I guess we're currently drilling a hole that will, you know, kind of test the northern extent and, test that zone at depth. Beyond that, you know, we'll be drilling that next, starting next season in a couple of months.
Thank you. What's the current resource, and how many meters have been drilled since last resource update?
Um-
Yeah.
Go ahead, Bob.
I can answer that one, Wojtek. The current resource, right now we've used for our main base case resource, quite a low cut-off grade of 0.33 copper equivalent. Now, within that, we've got 2 billion tons indicated at 0.48 copper equivalent, plus 800 million tons inferred at 0.39. What's interesting is if you increase the cut-off grade, and that's basically the idea behind this current program, is to, as Wojtek described, you know, go in there and look for the higher grade part of the deposit. At a 0.58 copper equivalent cut-off grade, we've got 500 million tons at 0.65 copper equivalent. What we're looking to do is get in there within that 500 million tons, you know, look at what the higher grade portion of that is, find that with our resource depth.
Since the last resource update, we've drilled about 9,000 m.
Yeah.
Thank you. Go ahead.
This program will ultimately be somewhere between 10,000 m and 11,000 m, the 2022 program.
We have an important question on the water. Will the project have access to enough water or will it have to come from the sea?
I mean, that's way in front of us. I mean, I think everybody knows that we're located in the Atacama Desert, you know, the Andes Mountains in the Atacama region. It's the driest desert in the world. Water is an issue throughout northern Chile. You know, there's limited groundwater available. When a project's ultimately developed here, you know, we're gonna have to look at, you know, at all scenarios. There's, you know, groundwater is very limited in this area. I think for Los Helados, you know, some of the development scenarios I think mitigate the water risk. You know, we are located halfway between Caserones and Josemaria. I mean, if it was developed in conjunction with one of those two deposits, they both have water supply.
I mean, that's a longer term problem. I think there's a water supply solution for Los Helados depending on the development scenario.
Thank you. Quite a technical question here maybe for Bob. Can you expand a bit on the low resistivity area in the north that will be tested? What are the key indications and expectations from surface alteration and resistivity data?
Yeah. What we've seen in the geophysical data, we had it reprocessed, recompiled this spring, is that I guess it's more looking at rather than specific anomalies, more patterns within it. We see a very distinct pattern around the Condor Zone, and we see that pattern repeated to the north. That's linked in with another observation from one of our previous holes, which is the most northerly one before we drilled 78. That hole, upon re-logging it and reinterpretation, seems like it got into a more porphyry center so it's not a bad intersection, that seemed then to be getting into a different porphyry center to the north of the main Condor Zone. That had its own geophysical signature, which was similar to that we see in the Condor Zone.
The other thing is that with the Fenix Zone, it's kind of interesting looking at the geophysics there because the intersections that we're getting so far are quite deep. They're below the level where you could get any geophysical information. Yet in the shallow geophysics there, we do see quite a nice chargeability anomaly in the IP. That I think is good evidence that the Fenix probably comes a lot closer to surface than we've drilled currently. We're keen to get some over that we can bring it closer to surface.
Yeah. If I can add to that, I would refer that questioner to the corporate presentation, and there's a slide in there that shows the geophysics that Bob is talking about. That geophysics is resistivity, which is an electrical geophysical method that basically measures the ability of the rock to transmit electrical current. It's not exactly right, but the more altered and the more mineralized the rock is, you can kind of, you know, the more, the better it is at conducting an electrical current and the lower the resistivity is. Low resistivity zones are kind of, you know, a rough proxy for areas where the rock is more altered and potentially has more sulfides in it, and therefore it's better at transmitting electricity and has lower resistivity.
We're seeing that kind of low resistivity feature that we think is mapping the top of these high-grade zones. We see that kind of signature on top of the Condor Zone, as Bob mentioned. We see it on top of the Fenix Zone, and then we see it in other areas of the property, including off to the north near where Hole 78 has been drilled. There's quite a good slide in the corporate presentation that shows both the relationship of the low resistivity zones to the Condor Zone and then a plan view that shows other areas that have a similar signature. I didn't include that in this presentation, but you can see it in the corporate.
We do have a question here. We're coming to the end, but we have a question on Valle Ancho.
Mm.
What are the next exploration steps there, considering the recent mineralization discovery? Is the plan to extend the current mineralization or define high-grade zones?
Well, Valle Ancho is a much earlier stage project than Los Helados. I mean, Los Helados is really brownfields exploration. Valle Ancho is, you know, it's a huge land package. It's over 100,000 hectares. It's very similar to what the whole Vicuña District, Filo, Josemaria, Los Helados, you know, that entire area looked like 10 or 15 years ago. You know, we're at a much earlier stage. You know, our drill program this year was highly successful. But it's eight holes in an area that's over 100,000 hectares. You know, think about the amount of drilling that we've done between Filo and Josemaria and Los Helados over the years. It's very early days.
I mean, obviously, every time we drill a hole, we're trying to target the best grade that we can. You know, I mean, the results from Valle Ancho are super encouraging, but it's very early days. I mean, I guess what we're doing right now is just you know, we're kind of assessing the results from this year's drilling. We did a bunch of target development work after we finished the drill program. We're kind of taking a look at that, seeing what you know, what new drill targets developed out of that. We're trying to think about what the you know, what the follow-up program would be in the areas that we've drilled.
We're right into the part of our year where we start thinking about, you know, we've just completed a field season, we're starting to think about what we do next year. We're just right in the middle of that process for Valle Ancho. You know, that's something that we'll be defining over the next couple of months. I can't really say much more than that because we're still in the process of figuring out what the next steps there will be. Super encouraging results from that first pass drilling that we did earlier this year.
Thank you, Wojtek, and I think we'll take this as the last question, and it's an interesting one. How do you feel about where NGEx is trading today on the valuation basis relative to some of its peers, given the recent success in drilling and the run-up in the stock? You have-
Well, I just.
... previously been comparing with SLS, SolGold, and where do we stand there?
Yeah, I think we're still, you know, we're still undervalued compared to peers. We're still undervalued to what we think the, you know, the full value of this deposit and this company, are. I think there's a long way to run. I think we're just really starting to demonstrate the potential of, you know, of Los Helados 2.0 and the ability of Los Helados to deliver grade. You know, I'm happy with how our share price has performed. I think where we started, you know, in September of last year, you know, we were severely undervalued, and I think we're a lot a little less severely undervalued.
I think, you know, the increase in the share price has been welcome, but you know, it's really just starting to recognize the value of Los Helados. I think there's a long way to run here.
Thank you, Wojtek, and with that, we have no further questions. I would certainly like to thank everyone and a lot of you joining today. You will certainly be hearing back from us. I mean, the Vicuña District is core to the Lundin Group, and all companies active there will continue to update the shareholders. Over to you, Wojtek.
No, I'd just like to thank all of our shareholders, and thank you for your support. I look forward to doing this again as we have more drill results. It's been a super exciting year.
Thank you.