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Mawson Gold (TSX: MAW)(OTC: MWSNF) CEO Michael Hudson on High-Grade Gold Intercepts from Sunday Creek Project, Australia, and Update on Flagship Rajapalot Gold-Cobalt Project, Finland
Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the CEO of Mawson Gold — the very busy, Mr. Michael Hudson. Mike, how are you today?
Michael Hudson: Good morning from Down Under, Gerardo. I'm very well, thanks!
Gerardo Del Real: A lot of gold Down Under! Let me read the headline:
Mawson drills 17.7 meters at 3.7 grams per tonne gold and 0.7% antimony, including 2.2 meters of 15.8 grams per tonne gold and 3.3% antimony at Sunday Creek in Victoria, Australia.
You announced assays from two drill holes. I believe this is the best drill hole out of that project. Is that accurate?
Michael Hudson: It is. It is. It's getting better as we get deeper.
Gerardo Del Real: You don't excite easy. You and I spoke a bit off air, and I read through the release, of course, and so it's… for you to describe Sunday Creek as shaping up as one of the best discoveries to emerge from the new wave of gold exploration in Victoria — I don't take that lightly because I've known you for some time, and you don't just throw around compliments on properties without a core foundation to base that on.
And so I'm going to let you provide the context of that core foundation because the numbers, thus far, are spectacular.
Michael Hudson: Yeah, it's a good property, Gerardo. And there's been $200 million raised for exploration gold – looking for the next Fosterville in Victoria – over the last year or so. $200 million. It's a huge amount of capital. And about 50% came from the Australian markets; 50% came from the Canadian markets, more or less.
Now, people are putting a lot of effort into trying to find that next Fosterville, and we've got lots of great peers here in the state. But I think we've been fortunate here with this 100%-owned property that we have that this is continually stacking up money.
We're 12 holes in now; about 2,500 meters of drilling or something like that. And pretty much each hole has initially proven the context of mineralization and found mineralization around the old mining areas. And this is a big step-out now. It's about 100 meters below the old working areas. And the mineralization is continuing to-depth at great thicknesses.
I mean, that headline was actually a conservative headline. It was actually part of a 36 meter wide zone that went to 2.4 grams gold and 0.4% antimony. So a big thick structure made up of multiple, multiple sheeted veins. And we're seeing those grades there; we're seeing 20 centimeters at 37 grams and 12% antimony. And then you mentioned, also, over two meters over half an ounce also within that.
So width and grade is certainly there. And this is only one of the sheeted vein systems that we've got on the property. I mean, we really don't know how many we've got but there's multiple different areas – at least four different or five different mined areas – and each one of those contain up to 20 individual sheeted veins; each one of those areas. So there's a lot to do here and a lot to pull apart. And this is only one area from Apollo.
We've got a system here that was mined at very good grades 100 years ago. We've found bits and parts of it that weren't mined because the old timers really only looked at 15 grams and above. And now we're starting to see the better parts develop.
The best hole is below the old workings, which sort of makes sense. And then, we've got 11 kilometers to extend this system into. So it's going to continue to-depth, and that's what we're proving. But it's also going to continue along strike. And we've got 11 kilometers of historic mines that have been undrilled.
And then, the last point, it was just the grade that we're seeing across the board now with all of our assays back. And we're starting to see the multi-ounces over 10 centimeters to two meters, I should say, that sort of two to three ounces. And that's what we really like to see.
So it is really shaping up. And you want to be careful how you rank yourself against your peers. But I challenge your listeners to find something better that's come out of Victoria over the last few years.
Gerardo Del Real: I like it! You mentioned in the release that you are looking to bring in extra drill capacity. I've joked often when you and I speak, no one does that to not find more gold. How is that coming along?
Michael Hudson: Well, rigs are tight. And we've got a drill rig at-hand and another drill rig coming in May. So we've got one rig turning there. It's been a little slower than I would have hoped over the last few months through a whole lot of different things… through just a shortage of drillers themselves.
The drill company has been a bit tight for a few weeks through, literally, fires. We get off site when there's some fires around us – which there haven't been many this year – to floods, which we're also getting in Australia now where it just gets a bit wet to get into or out of the site.
So it's been a bit slow. So we like the results we're seeing, and we'd like to up the meters. So there's probably another rig bound for the project in another six weeks.
Gerardo Del Real: Excellent! You have multiple excellent projects as well. How are things on the other fronts?
Michael Hudson: Well, in Victoria, we've got another two projects that have still remained very good exploration projects but just aren't developing as quickly or with the tenor that we're seeing from Sunday Creek.
And then, of course, we’ve got four rigs turning in Finland, which is probably what you're hinting at. First results will be out very shortly from that program. We've got 20 kilometers of drilling, and that's our main job, actually, at the moment. We've got 75% of our budget going into Finland and only 25% into this great discovery here in Victoria.
So you'll see a hell of a lot of news flow start to come to the table. We only started drilling late-January, and it's really taken 6 to 8 weeks to get all of that core through the system that we started with. And that will continue through into June/July. So a lot coming to the table.
Gerardo Del Real: A lot to like. A lot of news flow. Anything else to add to that, Mike?
Michael Hudson: No, we've got two great projects developing in two different parts of the world. And keep an eye on the strategic decisions that we're going to be able to make around making discoveries and creating further value for shareholders.
Gerardo Del Real: Looking forward to it! Thanks again, Mike.
Michael Hudson: Thanks, Gerardo.
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