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Dolly Varden Silver (TSX-V: DV)(OTC: DOLLF) CEO Shawn Khunkhun on First Assays from 2024 Exploration Program
Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real, with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the President and CEO of Dolly Varden Silver, Mr. Shawn Khunkhun. Sean, it is great to have you on. How are you, sir?
Shawn Khunkhun: I'm doing excellent. Pleasure to be on.
Gerardo Del Real: Well, let's get right into it. We have silver flirting with the $30 level once again. The last time we spoke, we spoke about the incredible grades and widths that you're getting out of the multiple targets. You just announced the first drill results from the 2024 exploration program and got to tell you did not disappoint 978 grams per tonne silver over five meters that included 3,670 grams per tonne silver, over 0.79 meters at the Moose Vein. Can you speak to the results? Got to be pretty happy with what you're seeing.
Shawn Khunkhun: Yeah. We're very happy with what we're seeing. And to put this into context, Dolly Varden has about 64 million ounces of silver in compliant resource estimate, that's in both the M&I and inferred category. So we've got about 64 million ounces of silver and a million ounces of gold. Or another way to express that is 150 million ounce silver EQ. 50% silver, 50% gold.
Now that silver, the bulk of the silver comes from the Torbrit deposit, which produced 20 million ounces, and there's about 35 million ounces left in the resource estimate. So that's a plus 50 million ounce deposit. Now we are on the hunt for the next Torbrit, and we found it 1.4 kilometers away, and that's the Wolf deposit. And I think one of the reasons that Dolly's share price and market cap has grown, one of the very many reasons is because of the Wolf.
The Wolf, we made a discovery underneath the sediment cap. It opened up a new horizon. We took what was a surface vein, and we've taken it now we've got almost a kilometer of strike length. So as we took a step back, Gerardo, we asked ourselves, there was 94 silver occurrences in the southern part of the property. And we asked ourselves, "Is there a pattern? Could we fingerprint what was happening at Torbrit at Wolf and find that on other parts of the project?"
And what it revealed was every 1.4 kilometers going up the valley on this trend, there was a break. And in that break there was an opportunity for a deposit. So we've got Torbrit, which is just up from the old Dolly Varden silver mine. Dolly was the richest silver mine in the British Empire. Torbrit was Canada’s third-largest silver mine so had rich history on the property. But as we move into the modern era, this Wolf is demonstrating it could be the next Torbrit.
So we go, Gerardo, 1.4 kilometers north into Moose. And what's very, very interesting about this is not only do we find three and a half kilos of silver in drilling, great grades, spectacular grades, but the reason we were able to find it is because we have an understanding of the plunge of the mineralization. So the geometry to how these veins are plunging is what our team has identified.
So not only do they know the periodicity, the spacing, that 1,400 meter spacing in between deposits, but they've also captured the plunge. Now, in addition to the five meters of 1,000 grams in Moose, exactly 1.4 kilometers north, so the same distance between Torbrit and Wolf and Wolf and Moose is Moose and Chance. So in addition, there was two holes released. The second hole was over 200 grams of silver over 20 meters and that's at the Chance Vein. So you've got yet another area on the property demonstrating it could be the next 50 million ounce silver deposit.
Gerardo Del Real: That's a heck of a way to start publishing assays from the 2024 exploration program. Obviously a big, big program. Silver looks bullish to me, gold looks bullish to me. What comes next, Shawn?
Shawn Khunkhun: So we've actually already completed... there was years in the past where Dolly wouldn't start drilling until June 24th. We're recording this interview on June 24th. There'd be years where Dolly wouldn't even start drilling until July 1st. We've already completed almost 10,000 meters of drilling. We have completed 27 holes. We're drilling holes 28, 29, and 30 right now because we have three rigs. Those rigs are at Wolf.
We're doing directional drilling. What is directional drilling? It's a drilling method that allows for precision targeting. And so we had phenomenal numbers out of Wolf last year, 29 meters of 461 grams of silver. Wide, high grade intercepts. But if this directional drilling accomplishes its goal to capture the multiple structures that are bringing in the mineralization, I would suspect that we could be in store for even better drill results. So what's to come is results from Wolf.
And what's really exciting is July 1st is Canada Day. And I was told yesterday that there's a chance that we take a rig up to Homestake. We weren't supposed to go up to Homestake until July 15th. There's a chance we'll be there two weeks ahead of schedule. So in addition to the exploration drill results that we've put out, and there's more results around Moose, and Chance, and North Star, and Red Point.
So what we're trying to show is growth. We're trying to show that Wolf's got legs. And then the most exciting target, in my opinion, is following up on that big gold discovery we made last year where we drilled in a brand new zone outside of the resource 12 and a half meters of 79 grams of gold.
Gerardo Del Real: Exciting times. It's going to be an exciting second half of the year. I'm looking forward to having you back on, Shawn. Thank you so much. I continue to insist that Dolly Varden to me is a prime takeout target. Makes sense for a lot of different groups, especially in the price environment that I see developing in the precious metals space. Shawn, thank you so much for coming on. Look forward to having you back on soon.
Shawn Khunkhun: Thank you so much, Gerardo.
Gerardo Del Real: All right, chat soon. Cheers.
Shawn Khunkhun: Take care.
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