Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Mawson Resources (TSX: MAW) CEO Michael Hudson on the Launch of a Large-Scale, 15,000 Meter Drill Program at the Rajapalot Project to Follow Up on the Successful 2017 Drilling Program

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is CEO of Mawson Resources (TSX: MAW)(OTC: MWSNF), Mr. Michael Hudson. Mike, how are you?

Michael Hudson: I'm very well. Thank you, Gerardo.

Gerardo Del Real: I know you've been busy. We spoke off the air and I know you lost a day here recently.

Michael Hudson: That's the wonders of living at the bottom of the southern hemisphere here in Australia. So when I travel from North America back home, I lose a day but, when I leave, I generally arrive before I left, if that makes sense. So, it swings in roundabouts.

Gerardo Del Real: There you go. Well listen. Thank you so much for making time for me today. You had a news release here just a few minutes ago. The headline reads, "Mawson mobilizes four rigs and commences 15 kilometer drill program in Finland." You have over a dozen targets that you're going to be targeting. I actually want to start out, I read through the release, and I want to start out by complimenting you on using shareholder capital efficiently. We had talked about East Rompas several times. You had tested some surface samples that, frankly, were absolutely spectacular. You got into the target or a portion of it and you didn't hit what you were looking for, you didn't see the continuity.

So before we go into the rest of the very substantial program at some of the other targets, I want you to speak a bit to East Rompas, the potential that still exists but also how you go about deciding, after you've evaluated and tested a portion of the target, that it's time to move the rig and go look somewhere else.

Michael Hudson: Yeah. Well thanks, Gerardo. We drilled down to the high-grade outcrops at East Rompas and as we've talked about, we were looking for continuity there. We've had some extremely high grades in outcrop at surface. We put 1,500 meters or thereabouts under those high-grade outcrops and we did hit some gold, some gold in drilled core. But the continuity's not there so it's not the style that we're after. Obviously we were hoping for more but that dog didn't hunt as we say. In terms of immediately under those outcrops, we think we need to look elsewhere. The prospect still holds potential but we're talking at a much larger scale now. So rather than the 600 or 700 meters of strike that we tested, we're looking at 20 kilometers of strike around that rock mass and so we got to stand back again and we believe a disseminated form of gold has the potential to form in those rocks because there's a hell of a lot of gold that's passed through there. You don't find these extremely high grades anywhere in the world really without a very efficient system forming.

And so we're now putting 900 shallow drill holes along strike from that area to try and find that host horizon that can form a disseminated and more consistent style of gold. So the old adage is in exploration we want to make sure that we're trying to prove something is there rather that it isn't there. We cut back the program, assessed it and saw that we weren't in the right rocks and now we're looking for those right rocks.

Gerardo Del Real: Again, this is part of a large-scale program. Just to be clear, the assays at East Rompas, I believe there were assay results from the first five holes, a total of eight diamond drill holes totaling 1,474 meters have been drilled. Now let's talk about the program that's underway currently. It's a 15,000 meter drill program. Can you talk about the details there, Mike?

Michael Hudson: Stepping back we've immediately pivoted across eight kilometers to the east from East Rompas and going back to the areas that have delivered for us over the last year or so where we found a lot of gold. You mentioned a dozen targets, well we're going to test over a dozen new targets of the mineralized sequence that we haven't tested to date. We've really only tested 5% of that mineralized sequence over there. So 12 targets will be new in that 15 kilometer program and that will be half the program. The other half will be directed at the gold prospects that we've already defined Palokas, South Palokas, Rumajärvi and Raja.

And there we've already drilled gold and we're looking to extend and grid-drill out those areas working towards maiden resources in ideally all those areas. Those areas have delivered. There's an amazing hit rate of gold there. Something like 42% of our drill holes to date have hit significant gold. The average drill hole depth in Rajapalot is just over 100 meters so we're just scratching the surface. We know that we've got 4 plus 12 is 16 targets we'll be drilling there with gusto over the coming three months.

Gerardo Del Real: So to be clear, it's 12 new targets and at least 16 targets total, is that correct?

Michael Hudson: Correct.

Gerardo Del Real: Wonderful. Now you mentioned that 42% of the holes had discovered significant gold and just to quantify that a bit, that's greater than 1 gram per tonne gold and interestingly 28% recorded greater than 5 grams per tonne. Is that accurate, Mike?

Michael Hudson: Exactly, 5 grams per tonne over 1 meter. We've got an amazing success rate in an area where's there's 99% till cover. Till is the glacial soils that cover the area. We're drilling blind with geophysical and geochemical targeting but essentially there's been a lot of gold delivered in that first round program from last year and that's what we're going to really leverage off this winter.

Gerardo Del Real: Perfect. Well, Mike, I want to thank you again for your time today. I look forward to having you back on as we start to get assays from some of these targets. Both the new targets that you'll be testing and of course the targets that we know historically have delivered very well for Mawson.

Michael Hudson: Fantastic, Gerardo. I look forward to the news flow that's going to emanate from this significant program.

Gerardo Del Real: Thanks again, Mike.

Michael Hudson: Thanks, Gerardo.

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