Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Mawson Gold (TSX: MAW)(OTC: MWSNF) CEO Michael Hudson on Stand-Out Gold Grades & Widths at Flagship Rajapalot Gold-Cobalt Project, Finland, as Resource Upgrade Nears

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the chairman & CEO of Mawson Gold — Mr. Michael Hudson. Mike, how are you today?

Michael Hudson: Hey, good afternoon, Gerardo. Thank you for that momentous welcome!

Gerardo Del Real: Well, you had a momentous news release a couple of days ago! Let me read the headline numbers out of Finland:

You drilled 20.7 meters of 7.4 grams per tonne gold from 74 meters. That included 2.2 meters of 32.6 g/t gold and 3.0 meters of 19.4 g/t gold. 

We know that the entire sector has gone through a consolidation along with the price of gold. I am extremely optimistic about the second half of this year and where gold ends up here by year-end. 

And I’ve got to tell you, the consistency with the numbers out of Finland and Australia — but we're talking Finland today — leads me to believe this is one of the better speculations in the market right now. Congrats on some just incredible grades and widths!

Michael Hudson: It continues to deliver! There’s been only a few exploration assets in my career that have continued to deliver the more you drill. And this system here in Finland that we have at Rajapalot has done that each drill season. 

This is shaping up as one of the better drill seasons for us as we move towards our upgraded resource over the next month, or a few more weeks after that. In August, we anticipate we'll put the resource out.

It is a key point to make here, I think, and the takeaway is — the more you drill in this system, the more you can define the grade. And the more we understand the system, the more we can define the grade. So that result you mentioned was up-plunge in the Raja body where we'd only seen low grades previously. And we had the hunch that the high grades that we see a little bit below that should continue. 

And we drilled, literally, to the side of our current drilling and used some structural ‘geology smarts’ that the team put together. And bang! We hit these extraordinary grades. They're 70 to 90 meters down-hole depth. So 50 to 70 meters vertical depth. So they're extraordinary grades so close to the surface.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent cobalt grades as well. I would love for you to comment on that.

Michael Hudson: Well, actually, the cobalt grades get better at-depth rather than close to surface in this system. So there certainly was some cobalt hanging around there, and it's a key part of this system. But, actually, the gold here was the clear payable by 95% whereas, normally, we see a 10%-15% contribution in-situ from the cobalt. 

So cobalt is the element that's going to help this project get built. Our aim is to move to become the 6th largest cobalt resource in Europe — remembering it's only our byproduct — over the next month or so. So it is a key strategic mineral as the world is racing towards strategic metals from sustainable jurisdictions.

Gerardo Del Real: You've drilled 76 holes so far just shy of 20,000 meters. You have a total of, I believe, 43 drill holes from 5 prospect areas that have yet to be reported. A lot of news flow and the resource update. 

I would ask you what comes next but it's clear that there's going to be consistent news flow out of both Finland and Australia for the next several months.

Michael Hudson: The big picture for Finland is that our aim is to go north of a million ounces in the resource. That's what we've clearly stated and what we aim for when we plan these drill holes. So we'll see what comes of that when the resource comes together. But clearly, it's a great start, right? 

Now, this is becoming a significant deposit any way you cut it but it clearly must get bigger too. And this is a multi-million ounce field in the making. We haven't really touched the sides of this system, and it will continue over literally decades to get bigger and bigger — let alone what will happen over the next few years as we continue to make this bigger.

The other point is, we need to derisk those ounces that we've found and will find in the future. So we're going down our EIA studies; we're going down through land use rezoning; we're bringing engineers more and more into the team to start in-house studies that will eventually lead to studies that we can publish over the next year around the economics of this system. 

So it's a two-pronged approach. What is next? Let's continue to make it bigger. It can get a lot bigger. But let's derisk those ounces that we’ve found and will find in the short-term.

Gerardo Del Real: Sounds like a project that a mid-tier or a major might be interested in, Mike.

Michael Hudson: This is, hands down, in the sweet-spot at some point. We're here to create value. At a C$60 to C$70 million market cap, this, we believe, has an opportunity to increase our market cap dramatically by undertaking that strategy. 

So, certainly, there's no interest at this moment for us to do anything more than to continue to follow that strategy. But if we execute well — making it bigger and derisking those ounces — this is in that sweet-spot for those companies, without a doubt. That's no secret!

Gerardo Del Real: Well said, Mike! Thank you so much for the update. It sounds like we'll be chatting pretty soon again.

Michael Hudson: Thanks, Gerardo.

Gerardo Del Real: Thank you.

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