Welcome to The Market Herald Canada’s Capital Compass. Our next company is a publicly traded precious- and base-metal explorer, with headquarters in Vancouver.
Joining us today is Marshall Koval, CEO and director of Luminex Resources Corp. (TSXV:LR), who is here to share all the information about the company and its recent projects.
TMH: And for our listeners who may not be aware, can you provide some background about your company?
Koval: Luminex is an early-stage exploration company. We put out a PEA on our Condor North project, which has about 3 million ounces of gold and $387 million NPV at $1,600 an ounce gold.
And basically, right now we’ve made an additional discovery, and we just finished up some drilling there where we discovered this Cuyes West deposit, a high-grade deposit. So (we) probably can talk about that a bit more.
But basically, the company on the books has about 6 million ounces of gold and about 400 million pounds of copper. And we’re severely undervalued right now. I know every CEO is going to tell you that, but by any metrics that you look at us, we’re a great investment opportunity at these low prices. Where we’re at, we’re at about $35 million market cap.
TMH: And why is your group focused specifically on exploration and development in Ecuador? And why does the management team like gold and copper as its focus commodities?
Koval: I mean gold and copper are two of the really good commodities that we’ve seen over the last several years. You know, today as we speak, we’ve got gold up to about $1,960 an ounce. Copper’s in the upper $3 range.
And basically those two commodities, gold as a financial instrument and then jewelry market and that sort of thing. And then copper with electrification and that sort of thing works out really well for us.
So, Ecuador, if you look at why we’re in Ecuador, basically the country is systematically underexplored because of geopolitics. When we entered the country in 2014, we were an early entrant and there’s massive exploration potential in the country.
We’re just south of Au Fruta del Norte and we’ve made major discoveries with Cuyes West, the Camp Zone, and those sort of projects. So, we’re really bullish on Ecuador. Geopolitically Ecuador’s getting better as we speak. They just had elections for the new president, so we’re really bullish on the country and those two commodities.
TMH: And the company has recently been announcing some very high-grade gold results at Cuyes West and some excellent recent test work on metal extraction. How will Cuyes West fit into the Condor North project and the PEA you already have out?
Koval: So, the PEA that we put out had an underground deposit called the Camp Zone, and that produced about 2,500 tons per day, and it had open pit targets that were 22,500 tons per day. So basically, the Cuyes West deposit is the highest-grade deposit we’ve ever drilled.
We have a lot of intercepts from four to eight metres wide, sort of plus 10 grams sort of material. Some of the grades are similar to what you see north of us at Au Fruta del Norte. I’m not saying we have an Au Fruta del Norte, but real high grades.
So, with this underground extension of the Cuyes West deposit, we’re looking at rescoping the PEA, which was both underground and open pit to two underground deposits, the Camp Zone and Cuyes West.
And we have more drilling to do next year, but we hope to have sort of a million and a half ounces of high-grade gold as the starter project and then later bring the open pits in.
TMH: And I would imagine that given the success the company has had this year with drilling, there are additional plans lined up. Can you speak to what the company hopes to achieve in 2024?
Koval: So at Cuyes West in particular, and this is within the Condor North area where we have about 3 million ounces of gold roughly. We’re looking at drilling about 5,000 metres early next year. And basically, that’ll allow us to have an area of about 450 metres along strike and about 500 metres to depth to define additional high-grade resources at Cuyes West.
And then once we’ve completed that work, we’ll look at updating the PEA that we put out and going with the Camp Zone and Cuyes West, two underground high-grade targets as the starter. And then ultimately look at, do we bring the open pits that were in the PEA into the mine plan.
TMH: And what makes this company a good investment for those wanting to add a large precious metal resource and exploration play to their portfolio?
Koval: So basically, you know, the market cap at about $35 million Canadian today, we have massive upward leverage to gold discoveries. And I haven’t mentioned our Santa Barbara deposit, which is within the Condor Land package. There’s another 3 million ounces of gold there.
So we’ve got about 6 million ounces, 6 and a half million ounces of gold on the books and about 400 million pounds of copper. So any way you value this, ounces in the ground or the PEA and the NPV that we had in the PEA we’re massively undervalued and we’re in a jurisdiction in Ecuador that’s got a lot of potential for discovery and geopolitically is getting better as we speak.
You can follow Luminex Resources on the Venture Exchange under the symbol LR, or head to their website at luminexresources.com for more information.
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