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Heliostar Metals (TSX-V: HSTR)(OTC: HSTXF) CEO Charles Funk on New Discovery at Apollo Mine Target — Flagship Unga Gold Project, Alaska — as Early Drilling Hits 88.3 Grams Per Tonne Gold
Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the CEO of Heliostar Metals — Mr. Charles Funk. Charles, I would ask you how you are but I sense that you're well!
Charles Funk: I'm doing very well, as you can imagine, with this news.
Gerardo Del Real: Well, let's get right into it. The stock was halted a few days ago. We got news yesterday, later in the evening time — let me read the headline, spectacular results, right:
Heliostar Drills 3.05 Meters of 88.3 Grams Per Tonne Gold.
This follows a release, a few weeks back, that was also extremely, extremely positive. I would love for you to provide some context on the results. Phenomenal numbers, congrats!
Charles Funk: Yeah, thank you very much. And got a very good reaction until we ran into the Fed buzzsaw later in the day.
Gerardo Del Real: You're not alone, Charles, you're not alone!
Charles Funk: No, this result is quite transformational for us. In fact, to use a buzzword for the Fed, I think the current reaction to the Fed is transitory. And real results and real gold projects will continue on.
And so what it means for us is we've clearly had a strategy of increasing that high-grade resource at the Unga Project. And these results give us an entire new zone. The two holes hit over 500 meters apart; have excellent grade; have multiple intersections. So there's multiple parallel veins.
And the story is that this was Alaska's first underground gold mine. The Apollo Mine operated from 1886 to 1922. And the old-timers made a lot of money and were very profitable. They produced 130,000 ounces at 10 grams per tonne. But they ran into a problem. As they got deeper, they started getting base metals with the gold — and that's what happens in these systems.
And at the time with the technology, they couldn't recover the gold from the base metals. Whereas with flotation — that's been industry standard for 75 years — that's really straightforward.
And so that’s represented an amazing opportunity. We've been able to walk up to an old gold mine and drill where the old-timers told you that there was ore with a hundred-year break and over a hundred-fold increase in the gold price. It's an incredible opportunity.
Gerardo Del Real: You’ve made it pretty clear, privately and publicly, that you believe that the fully-funded program can demonstrate and outline a resource of over a million ounces of gold, right?
You're currently at around 384,000 Inferred ounces at 13.8 g/t gold. The results have to really encourage you as it relates to meeting that one million ounce number — and likely more from the looks of it.
Charles Funk: Yeah, this is an amazing district where we've talked about it offline; it's a huge area of alteration and veining. It's got porphyry targets, bulk tonnage targets, high-grade vein targets. And so we think, ultimately, we could have a multi-million ounce district. But we know we have to walk before we can run.
So if we can demonstrate a million ounces on these higher probability targets… I was telling everyone about our higher probability targets… and I'm glad I was right! And we said that because we were stepping out from either old mines or open intersections. It wasn't high-risk wildcat exploration. And so we know if we can deliver a million ounces — if we can deliver the framework with this program and then drill it off with the next program — that's going to lead to a considerable re-rate and make a lot of money for our investors.
And then it allows us to do the environmental baseline work, the permitting, and everything we'd need to do to put Unga back into production. But also, then go off and show the full size potential of the district.
So it was a very clear strategy of ours to do what makes sense in a timeline perspective and to unlock some real value immediately. And then, that'll be the stepping stone to minimize dilution and unlock the whole district.
Gerardo Del Real: You've executed very well. You mentioned how big the district is. The Apollo-Sitka Trend, itself, is over two kilometers long. And you've only tested, I believe, I think it's 725 meters of it. Is that correct?
Charles Funk: Yeah, exactly. If you look at our corporate presentation or visit our website, you can see this old long section that we show that the old-timers drew. They didn't have drill rigs so they physically sunk shafts and drove tunnels and blocked out these zones of mineralization.
They're not compliant from a modern sense but we use them as a guide. And so we wouldn't have touched 20% of that whole area either at-depth or along strike. So that's why we're so excited about Apollo. It's a huge footprint to explore.
Gerardo Del Real: Well, congrats again, Charles. I don't want to get into the other projects but I'll give you the opportunity to do so because I don't want to steal the spotlight from the phenomenal results, right? Anything else to add to the activity and everything going on with the portfolio?
Charles Funk: No, I think let's reinforce what we've delivered here. We've got 27 holes drilled already, and we've only got results from the first four of those. We're drilling two other targets at the Unga Project to expand the resource at SH-1.
And actually, our VP Ex's favorite target is Aquila. So watch for news flow over the next few months. It's nice to be able to deliver news when most companies are just mobilizing in Alaska. And that's the real advantage that working in the Aleutian Islands gives us.
Gerardo Del Real: Again, brilliant execution! Thanks again, Charles.
Charles Funk: Thanks, Gerardo. Thanks everyone for listening.
Gerardo Del Real: Chat soon.