The Valeriano Project, located in the Huasco Province of the Atacama Region of northern Chile, is situated approximately 151 kilometres southeast of the City of Vallenar. Up until the acquisition of a strategic 14,550-hectare surface rights package, as announced in September 2025, the Property consisted of 15 exploitation concessions and 14 exploration concessions covering a total area of 6,126 hectares.
The Project’s eastern and southern boundaries are formed by the Chilean border with Argentina and the concessions fall entirely within Chile. The Valeriano Project hosts a large copper gold porphyry deposit, below a near surface oxidized epithermal gold deposit that extends from surface to a depth of 100 metres1.
In 2023, ATEX reported updated mineral resources for both the oxide gold deposit and copper gold porphyry1. A second resource update followed in September 20251. Please see the Resource page for details on the current resource.
In 2022, Phase II drilling was the company’s first test of the porphyry system with two drill holes (ATXD17 and ATXD192) targeting the high-grade central trend, initially intersected by Hochschild drill hole VALDD-14. Both drill holes intersected significant mineralization confirming proof of concept for the potential of a higher-grade core of ≥0.8% CuEq within the Central High-Grade Trend at Valeriano.
In 2022-2023 Phase III drilling utilized directional drilling to expand on the successes of Phase II and reduce costs by re-entering historical drill holes and drilling daughter holes from depth. The Program has successfully expanded the mineralized corridor within the Valeriano project, extended the high-grade (≥0.8% CuEq) core and discovered a third porphyry trend to the west of the Central Trend.
Phase III drilling further bolstered ATEX’s proof of concept and intersected the project’s longest intersections to date in eight drill holes (ATXD11A3, ATXD214, ATXD11B5, ATXD225, ATXD22A6, ATXD236, ATXD22B7 and ATXD247).
2023-2024 Phase IV drilling again utilized directional drilling to realize the successes of past programs. ATEX has vastly improved the understanding of the geometry of the Valeriano system and demonstrated more continuity of the higher-grade core by intersecting the best grades seen on the Project to date. At the end of the campaign, the system remained open in all directions despite increasing the strike length on the mineralized intrusive units to over 1.2 kilometers demonstrating potential for scalability of the deposit. Additionally, the late-stage epithermal system overprinting wall rock mineralization that was intersected above the top of the porphyry units provides another exciting exploration target to follow up on in Phase V and represents potential optionality as a separate high-grade domain within the greater resource envelope and higher up in the system. Assay results from 8 drill holes were released (ATXD12A, ATXD16A, ATXD17A, ATXD25, ATXD17B, ATXD26, ATXD25A, and ATXD26A)8. Drill holes ATXD25A, ATXD26A, and ATXD278 were paused at the completion of Phase IV.
The 2024-2025 Phase V program, the largest and most successful exploration program at Valeriano to date, also utilized directional drilling, with approximately 16,600 metres of directional diamond drilling completed, saving ATEX approximately 9,200m of drilling compared to using conventional drilling methods. Phase V confirmed and significantly expanded the high-grade B2B Zone, which was previously identified from a single intercept in the final hole of Phase IV. At the end of Phase V, the B2B Zone extended over a strike length of roughly 500m and has been delineated approximately 200m closer to surface, with its upper contact positioned at a depth of 400m below the valley floor. Additionally, the high-grade porphyry trend within the Valeriano Porphyry, was extended by more than 200m to a length of approximately one kilometre. This mineralized corridor remains open along strike to the north-northwest and southeast.
Nine holes were completed in Phase V (ATXD16B, 22C, 23A, 23B, 25A, 25B, 27A, 28, and 28A)9 and four partial holes (ATXD22D, 25C, 27B, and 29A)9 to be completed as part of the Phase VI program.
As announced on December 19, 2024, ATEX has earned a 100% interest in the Valeriano copper-gold project. Please see the press release for details.
