Denarius Metals (DSLV.V) is a vehicle for mining entrepreneur Serafino Iacono and his team as they moved on from GCM Mining as that company was absorbed by Aris Mining. A long time member of that team was Denarius CFO Mike Davies who I spoke with June 13.
“We changed the name from Denarius Silver to Denarius Metals,” said Davies. “We now have three projects, Lomero-Poyatos deposit is located in the north-east part of the Spanish/Portuguese Iberian Pyrite Belt, our recently optioned earn-in zinc project, Toral in Northern Spain and our Zancudo silver-gold project in Colombia.”
“The Colombia project is a bit of a sleeper,” said Davies. “We retained 100% of the project when IAMGOLD decided to walk away as it was not a core priority to them. It is in a historical mining area in Colombia, has a historical mine and 40,000 meters of drilling.”
“Our plan is to get the old workings back into production using a contract miner. We’re aiming for early 2024,” said Davies. “We have to update the permits and figure out who will process the material. The goal is to produce 500 tons a day, crush it and, maybe, concentrate it. The resource contains 6 gpt gold and 100 gpt silver.”
With the team’s long experience in Colombia, Davies points out that Denarius is very involved with the communities in the area. “We’re working with the communities. One thing we are doing is building a bypass road to avoid our trucks driving through towns. We’re fortunate that it is a historical mining district so we are not anticipating negative reaction from the communities.”
While Denarius’ roots are in Colombia, for juniors the world is prospective. Spain, with its rich mining history, was a natural fit because of its culture. “The Iberian Pyrite Belt is a prolific mining district,” said Davies. It has been prolific since the time of the Roman Empire when it was a source for gold, silver, copper, tin and lead. The belt remains the largest concentration of massive sulphites in the world. Denarius’ Lomero-Poyatos deposit is on the northern edge of the Belt and is nearby several, large, producing mines.
Lomero-Poyatos has been the scene of mining and exploration activity since the late 1800s. There are eight levels of, now flooded mine workings. There are also thousands of meters of drill core, some better logged than others but representing a significant knowledge base. As well, gravimetric and resistivity studies have been conducted on the property. (This is all detailed in SRK Consulting’s comprehensive NI 43-101 Technical Report Mineral Resource Estimate submitted in late 2022 and press released November 2, 2022.)
“When we became interested in Lomero-Poyatos we knew it was high grade but it was stuck in bankruptcy,” said Davies. “There was an investigation permit in place and we bought out the creditors. There was an adjacent dormant exploration permit at Palomarejo and we were also able to get a clean permit there for three years.”
With this permit and ownership, Denarius set to work on its Phase 1, 26,000 meter, 83 hole, validation and infill drilling program. “This program gave us confidence in our model,” said Davies. “The MRE confirmed at least 10.7 million tons of material. We went on to Phase 2 which was completed in February. We drilled 13,225 meters in 42 holes. We got the results in May. Higher grades.”
Commenting in the press release announcing these results, Serafino Iacono, Executive Chairman and CEO stated, “We are encouraged by the Phase 2 drill assays validating the lateral and horizontal continuity of the massive sulphide and semi-massive sulphide mineralized lenses and confirming the presence of higher-grade mineralized zones within the broader resource envelope.”
“We’ve moved on to Phase 3 drilling which comprises 4,000 meters of infill drilling and 6,000 meters of “greenfield” drilling to test for extensions of the deposit,” said Davies. “When we complete the 4,000 meter phase we’ll update the MRE and get to work pushing a Preliminary Economic Analysis (PEA) out for the project by the end of this year.”
In November 2022, Denarius announced another Spanish venture. The Toral Zn-Pb-Ag Project, Leon Province, Northern Spain is subject to an earn in agreement with Denarius which is just getting underway. “The main focus is zinc,” said Davies. “We are looking at 20 million tons of material.” It is early days at Toral for us as we get on with exploring and expanding what looks like a rich, polymetallic, potential resource.
Denarius has put a lot on its plate but its management has put their money into the project, “Management owns 23% of the company, Aris owns 17%,” said Davies, “And if you look at the insider reports, Serafino is buying in the open market for his own account.”
With a little less than 60 million shares out and a market cap of $34,790,000, Denarius is very much worth a look at its current price of $0.59.