ATEX Valeriano resource doubles in size and grade; B2B breccia step-outs extend strike 50%

The Valeriano copper-gold porphyry in Chile's high Andes has more than doubled in size and improved in grade between 2023 and 2025, according to ATEX interim CEO Chris Beer, who joined Jimmy Connor to walk through what the company has done and where it is headed next.

Valeriano's maiden 2023 resource came in at roughly 1.4 billion tonnes at 0.67 CuEq (copper equivalent — a way of combining the value of copper, gold, silver, and other payable metals into a single copper-denominated grade). The 2025 update lifted that to about 2 billion tonnes at 0.8% CuEq, with the guest putting the contained metal at 20 million tonnes of copper equivalent, or 15 million ounces of gold in situ. He pegs the next update for fall 2027, after a record drilling season that included 28,000 metres this year alone.

What the speaker argues really moved the story is the B2B breccia — a coarse, broken-rock unit that typically forms above a porphyry intrusion. The first breccia hole, he says, hit 174 metres at 2.5%. The breccia sits roughly 500 metres above the main porphyry, which Beer argues would allow "a very efficient eventual mining scenario." The current B2B mineral resource sits at about 32 million tonnes at 1.4% CuEq.

Step-out drilling this season has materially expanded the breccia footprint. Hole 19A stepped 200 metres south of the existing envelope — about a 50% increase in strike length on a single hole — and ended still in porphyry mineralization 250 metres further on. A daughter hole, 19B, extended another 250 metres. Together, the B2B breccia is now defined at about 700 metres of strike, and Beer says it is still open to the south. Drilling to date has defined roughly a kilometre and a half of the underlying high-grade porphyry.

Equally interesting, he argues, is what the drill bit is finding outside the breccia itself. Hole 34, drilled east to test additional breccia targets, returned about 1,100 metres of 0.72% CuEq in rhyolite — a sponge-like volcanic host rock — suggesting the wall rock around the porphyry is intensely mineralized rather than barren. Hole 35, around 400 metres away, returned 400 metres of 0.54% CuEq. The B2B mineralized corridor, Beer says, is wide open to the east and southeast.

Metallurgy is the other piece Beer emphasizes. Two rounds of test work so far, with only one composite into the breccia, are showing 94–95% recoveries. On a global composite basis he says the work is producing a 33% copper concentrate against a global average of about 24%, with 14 grams of gold per tonne of concentrate versus the 2–3 grams that is typical. No deleterious elements like arsenic are showing up in the porphyry concentrate, which he describes as "ringing bells for not just investors, but mining companies."

The balance sheet underpins the work. ATEX sits on about $150 million in cash, with the guest pointing to roughly $140 million more that could come from in-the-money warrants at $3–$4. He frames the treasury as funding about two more years of exploration, and says the all-in drilling cost is around $1,100 per metre — the cheapest in the Andes, in his estimate. The shareholder register includes Agnico Eagle at 15%, Pierre Lassonde at 10%, and institutions at 50%, which the speaker argues gives the company unusual staying power for an explorer.

On consolidation, ATEX has been quietly stitching together a district. The Nuevo Horizonte property, acquired in January, sits about 7 kilometres southwest of Valeriano and adds 10,000 hectares to a total land position of 25,000 hectares. The company also picked up roughly 14,000 hectares of surface rights in fall 2025 to ease access. Of six large porphyry clusters the speaker sees in the district, four sit on ATEX ground and only one — Valeriano — has been drill-tested. The neighbour to the north is Antofagasta's El Oncierro, which Beer says is about 4 kilometres away and sits at roughly 2 billion tonnes of similar grade, with 600 million tonnes at 0.7 carved out as a resource.

Beer also makes a structural comparison. Filo del Sol sits at roughly 13 billion tonnes at 0.55% CuEq, with 0.8% CuEq in some higher-grade zones; Valeriano's 0.8% CuEq is roughly twice the global copper-gold porphyry average of 0.4%, with gold contributing about a quarter of the grade.

He notes he is serving as interim CEO while a special committee searches for a permanent replacement, with news expected in the next three to five months. He also flags continued assay flow into July, the start of the next drilling season in early September with expansion drilling on the B2B breccia to the south and east, and the first reconnaissance work at Nuevo Horizonte later in 2027.

The investment pitch, as Beer presents it: a high-grade, open-in-all-directions, fully funded copper-gold porphyry with clean metallurgy, sitting in a brand-new district that is starting to attract major-mining attention.