Almaden Minerals (TSX: AMM) CEO Morgan Poliquin on Latest Assays that Demonstrate the Potential for More Discoveries at the Ixtaca Gold-Silver Project

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is President and CEO of Almaden Minerals (TSX: AMM)(NYSE: AAU), Dr. Morgan Poliquin. Morgan, how are you today?

Morgan Poliquin: I'm excellent, thank you very much. And yourself?

Gerardo Del Real: I am doing well. Thank you very much for asking, Morgan. Now you had a couple of pieces of news recently. The first, I want to go in order here, was on the 31st of May. We've long talked about the exploration potential at Ixtaca, at the Tuligtic Project. I think this latest piece of news really highlights that and speaks to it. You hit 26 meters of 1.93 grams per tonne gold, including 1 meter of 27.5 grams per tonne gold, approximately 1.2 km southwest of the PFS pit at the Ixtaca project now. It's early stages there obviously, but it's 1.2 km southwest of the pit. Can you give me your thoughts, Morgan?

Morgan Poliquin: Yeah. Weaving into a bit the of the history here, we made the initial discovery of the Ixtaca deposit in 2010. As we all know, it's been a pretty challenging environment since that time. But we've been able to build a deposit with first, step-out and then resource drilling and then engineering work towards the pre-feasibility study last year and ultimately our feasibility study this year. We haven't – in that context of being focused on the deposit and de-risking it and moving it through those stages – we haven't been able to do some of the exploration work on the broader property. It was brand-new discovery in 2010 and we think that it's very likely geologically to be part of something broader. So now we're stepping out and doing this kind of drilling.

We had some drilling in the past, a couple of holes that indicated that there could be something like this here. These grades we think are quite significant and indicative of the possibility of new zones on the property. While it's early days, as you point out, and we're a long a way from a resource, to hit something over a kilometer away demonstrates the prospectivity of the project.

We're really excited to get back to this, which is really our knitting of early exploration and are hopeful that over the course of the next year, while on the one hand we're focused on the engineering, the final stages, the feasibility study and permitting a deposit, we're able to also flesh out some of the potential of the rest of the property here in this way.

Gerardo Del Real: The second bit of news, and this is a bit more recent, this is from yesterday, you just closed an oversubscribed $9.4 million non-brokered private placement. Can we speak a bit to who participated and supported the private placement? Any time you see a non-brokered private placement for $9.4 million, that's pretty significant and in light of the fact that the treasury was already pretty robust. Where's the cash position, who participated and what are you looking to do with it, Morgan?

Morgan Poliquin: Yeah. First off, we're very grateful for the support that we got from long-term shareholders that have been supportive of this project through these tough times for years now. And so the bulk of it is, I would say, is part of very supportive groups that have been looking and supporting the story for a long time.

So that's where it's coming from and what it will be used for is our ongoing development efforts. We are doing some things that I wouldn't say are unusual, but they're exciting and speak to, I think, the executability of our project. And that is spending some of what would be normally considered capital costs a little earlier in the program. In our pre-feasibility study capital costs we had some of the payments for the Rock Creek mill as well as some of the moving costs. By virtue of the fact that the Rock Creek mill is up in Nome, Alaska, where of course, the ocean freezes over. There's some of that capital cost expenditures need to be done ahead of times to ensure that the transfer of the plant to Mexico isn't squeezed into one summer and it's efficient and as de-risked as we possibly can.

We have some things that are quite exciting and dynamic in terms of moving the project forward, that actually are included in our pre-feasibility study capital costs that we are working on right now. So the cash will be used towards obviously the development of the project, the feasibility study and the permitting efforts over the next little while, but also into some of these activities. Based on our last quarterly including this money, we're sitting at a rough estimate would be around $20 million and that gives us really a good treasury to accomplish all those goals. And we're hopeful that as we've indicated in our filings and so on that we'll be able to initiate permitting and be in a place to report on that within the next 12 to 18 months, which is a really exciting time for this project.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. It's a two-pronged strategy, obviously you're moving forward the Ixtaca project, you talk about the engineering and the feasibility study and then that moving on. What does the exploration side look like? Obviously, exploration is what the Poliquins do best, you have a serial track record of success. What does that look like moving forward for the rest of 2018?

Morgan Poliquin: Well, there's lots of targets on the property and the one that you've asked me about, the recent news release, is obviously one of the key ones, but there are other targets that are less well understood and earlier stage. I think it's appropriate to remind people that our first hole, we were very fortunate in that it was the discovery hole into the Ixtaca deposit itself back in 2010, but there was not very much compelling to go on. It was pretty much a blind discovery where the mineralization was not well exposed at surface. Some of these more subtle targets may in fact turn out to be very important, particularly the geologic setting that we're in.

We want to explore all of those targets on the property. As I mentioned, I think it's very clear to us that the Ixtaca deposit has the possibility of being part of a much bigger mineralized potential district. It's off on its own, it's a significant deposit, and it's part of a much bigger alteration zone, the footprint of the hydrothermal fluids that have affected the rocks is much broader than the deposit itself. So all that speaks to the possibility of finding more. We don't know where that will happen, but the money that we've raised enables us to have a pretty robust exploration drilling program to see what can be there, as well as following up on these drill results.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, you've always preached that drilling and the drill bit is the best exploration tool. And I think it should be exciting for people that know your track record and your background, to see you out there deploying it once again, Morgan. Looking forward to it.

Morgan Poliquin: Excellent. Thank you very much for the opportunity and we're looking forward to reporting on results as they come in. Thanks again for having me on.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Thanks, Morgan. Chat soon.

Morgan Poliquin: Talk soon. Thank you.