Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Angold Resources (TSX-V: AAU)(OTC: AAUGF) CEO Adrian Rothwell on Drilling for Multiple Multi-Million Ounce Deposits

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the CEO of Angold Resources, Mr. Adrian Rothwell. Adrian, how are you?

Adrian Rothwell: I'm great, and good to be talking to you again in the new year, Gerardo.

Gerardo Del Real: It's great to have you back. We chatted a bit off air about the opportunity in the stock right now. Let's be very, very frank. Tax loss selling season was tough on most companies this year, right? And so I want to make sure that people that are looking at the resource space, specifically the junior resource space, understand the opportunity. So let me start by asking you this, where is your current market cap, Adrian?

Adrian Rothwell: We are at about 17 million Canadian dollars. Now that's about $14 million of the greenbacks for your US listeners, and that is a bargain. Of course, I'm the CEO.

Gerardo Del Real: Yeah. I would hope you believe it's bargain. Let's talk about why.

Adrian Rothwell: It's a bargain.

Gerardo Del Real: Absolutely. Let's talk about why let's get into Lajitas, the 2021 drilling, the success there, and then let's get into what comes next.

Adrian Rothwell: Yeah. Well just taking a step back, we did two news releases over the last week, really to wrap up what we did in 2021. The first news release... You remember, I've been on the show before and I've talked about it, but we had acquired the Lajitas resource, which is about half a million ounces at about 0.52 grams per tonne, and really a lot of low hanging fruit there. But we also staked a larger land package around this deposit because we noticed the opportunity. The first news release we did really sums up the work we did on that regional program and highlighting a number of earlier stage targets for us. And we believe that we've got multiple gold deposits on this project. Project's about 15,000 hectares. So it's a large, large area. The second news release recapped the work we did at Dorado, and in particular focusing on the drilling that we completed at Lajitas in 2021 and the highlighted holes, a little bit of an interpretation to help our subscribers, investors understand the significance of what we did there.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. And again, let's talk about that highlighted hole. It was 302 meters at 0.71 grams per tonne gold from surface, right?

Adrian Rothwell: Correct. Yeah. So certainly that's the highlighted hole. I love talking about this hole because it really shows the depth potential of this deposit. We are open at depth and we are open at surface. Our drill program expanded the mineralized area by about a hundred meters in every direction, including at depth. So we're not going to do an updated resource yet, but I would expect that to look quite good. We want to put some more drills in the ground before we do an updated resource, in a nutshell. We understand the resource a lot better. The structural controls, we drilled with core, this is really the first major core drill program on the project and that gives us a little better understanding of what's going on underground. So we are able to target our next program with a lot more accuracy for our open mineralization.

Gerardo Del Real: Let's talk about how you increase the accuracy. You have multiple porphyry systems on the property. You also have geochem anomalies, I believe. Over a six-and-a-half by four-and-a-half kilometers space, and I understand that you're advancing the final studies for the Declaración de Impacto Ambiental, which is of course the Chilean environmental evaluation system that will allow for more targeted drilling. How aggressive do you plan on being in 2022, Adrian?

Adrian Rothwell: Well, yeah, it's a combination of geology and geophysics. We’ve put this together and done a lot of modeling. We did an extensive soil sampling and regional rock chip sampling program, as well as geophysics over the course of 2021. And from that we have discovered another porphyry center, another epithermal system about a kilometer from Lajitas called Lajitas South. So to put that in perspective, we think it's a similar or larger resource potential area as Lajitas, and because of that... And we also have some earlier stage targets, but really we want to aggressively focus on Lajitas South, put some holes in that, as well as expanding Lajitas. And to do that, we have made the decision to put it into the environmental system that will allow us to do a much larger drill program in the future.

As you may know, we drilled under... In the US it would be called a notice of intent, in Chile they call it a pertinencia, and that limits the number of drill pads you can have. We could go back and do a little more drilling under the pertinencia, assuming we get approval again. But I don't really think that a smaller drill program is what this project deserves. We've got line of sight to multiple millions of ounces of potential, and I think if you really want to move the needle on this you're looking at a larger drill program. So 2022 for us, certainly until the drill season commences around October is going to be all about getting that permit at Dorado and we do have a permit, a pertinencia at our other project in Chile, Cordillera. So we would do a multiple drill program similar to our surface program last year.

Gerardo Del Real: You also have a project in Nevada that I got to ask you about before I let you go. Can you speak to that here briefly?

Adrian Rothwell: Yeah, sure. And this goes back to the value discussion, at $17 million we've got two advanced projects, both have got resources, and our other project is in Nevada. And of course that's our flagship project, has around 600,000 ounces of gold, mostly oxide. And again, we have not drilled it and there is low-hanging fruit. So we've spent 2021 mapping this project. We do have some historical drilling on it, but not a lot of information on structures at depth and the like. So we just completed the geophysical program. You'll see some news from us on that in the next couple of weeks, particularly with us mapping over the geology as well. And we're building towards drill targets.

So trusting the process, we'll have news on drill targets and we are engaging drillers to start. As soon as we can get onto that project... It'll be a smaller drill program at this point, but with some great results, hopefully hitting that deeper mineralization right up front. We'll be expanding that drill program over 2022, and we certainly want to be drilling all summer long. We have a permit for up to around a 10,000 meter drill program at Iron Butte, and this project... story simple, but just expanding resources, getting higher grade, and trying to build that into a mineable deposit.

Gerardo Del Real: It sounds like the theme for 2022 is drilling for multimillion ounce gold deposits.

Adrian Rothwell: That is correct. Yeah.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, all the luck, Adrian. If you're able to get it right on at least one of the properties, this market cap and this valuation is going to be laughable. And I think that's the runway there. You have a great team doing some great work, and I'm looking forward to the rest of the year and seeing it play out. Thank you so much for your time today.

Adrian Rothwell: Thank you, Gerardo.

Gerardo Del Real: We’ll chat soon.