Categories: Base Metals
Topics: General Base Metals

Gladiator Metals (TSX-V: GLAD)(OTC: GDTRF) President Marcus Harden on Hitting High-Grade Copper, Plus Significant Gold Credits, at the Flagship Whitehorse Copper Project, Yukon Territory, Canada

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the president of Gladiator Metals — Mr. Marcus Harden. Marcus, it's great to have you back on. How are you today, sir?

Marcus Harden: Great, thanks, Gerardo. Thanks for finding the time.

Gerardo Del Real: Oh, listen, anytime that you're hitting high-grade copper to the tune of 20.44 meters at 2.17% — I will find the time. You had some news here recently with just some spectacular widths of high-grade copper mineralization. You have to be pleased. I wanted to have you back on and just provide an update here and let everybody know how things are coming along.

Marcus Harden: Yeah, thanks, Gerardo. We've just announced, well, since March, we've announced the first 3,500 meters of diamond drilling, which we've done at the Chiefs trends. We've still got around 6,500 meters we are going to be doing in that area on that permit, which we're hoping we will be restarting sort of the middle of next month.

We basically just stopped for the change of season… making sure we don't cause any damage to roads and access trails as the snow melts. But yes, very pleased with the drill results, sort of getting good widths. That combined with our previous announcement, we've had a couple of intervals over 20 meters wide, grades generally between 1.5% and 2.5% copper in multiple holes. 

There's been a welcomed gold credit as well, sort of often above a gram a tonne but generally ranging between 0.3 and 1.5 grams a tonne on those intervals as well.

And what this drilling does is it sort of confirms the Middle Chief to Big Chief area as an area that we can be working up to start working towards resource potential. As you know, we already have an area at this stage down at Cowley Park, which has received a lot of drilling over 700 to 800 meters of strike. We're building up multiple prospects along the 35 km of strike that we have under tenure.

The idea is to work up more areas to start indicating a significant sort of tonnage potential. What is important to us is maintaining that grade. The historical operations were above 1.5% copper with around a gram per tonne gold credit as well. We are keen to keep targeting grade, and we feel that that's one of the things that makes us one of the more exceptional copper explorers out there at the moment.

Gerardo Del Real: You touched on the gold credit. And, at least on the Chiefs trends, the way I understand it is that historical drilling only assayed for copper. Is that correct?

Marcus Harden: That's correct, yes. Although gold was a significant credit when the mine was in production, it was never actually assayed for in any of the drill hole datasets. All we have is copper numbers in front of us. And obviously, if it's being mined at 1.5% copper but with a gram per tonne gold on top of it, that's a much more significant copper-equivalent grade.

We haven't been quoting copper equivalents. And the reason for that is our dataset at the moment just isn't quite big enough to be able to domain that separately and make sure that that's an appropriate thing to do. We're obviously pretty excited about what that could do to the overall grade of any future resources.

Gerardo Del Real: I have to believe that with the copper price heading north, if it does what I think it's going to do, which is absolutely go much higher, I have to believe that with the potential scale that Gladiator offers, that you have to have major companies reaching out, wanting to chat, wanting to look at the data, and at the very least, keep an eye on the developing story, because, again, the scale of this play is what's impressive to me. The grade is great, the widths are great, but it's all over the place.

Marcus Harden: Yes, and you sort of hit the nail on the head of what we're trying to achieve in the next six months, Gerardo. And that is really to demonstrate that scale. That's why we are trying to drill multiple areas to demonstrate that there are multiple prospects that can contribute to any future global resources. 

And we’re going to have a big push over the summer, over the next couple of months, to start working up our project pipeline. Exploration to date has very much been in and around historically known occurrences. But much of the belt lies undercover. And we've just flown a very detailed drone mag survey over the whole belt for the first time, which indicates a lot of continuity in the high-mag targets. 

Just to explain, these are mostly magnetite skarn so, obviously, they respond very well to magnetic surveys.

We're seeing sort of good continuity undercover between a lot of these outcropping areas, and that's what we're going to be building on in the summer. We're going to be building our regional exploration pipeline and really doing exactly what you're saying, Gerardo, which is trying to demonstrate that scale potential at this stage and bring in new prospect areas along our strike.

Gerardo Del Real: Listen, good times in the copper space, and more good times coming. And I suspect more good times are coming for Gladiator. Thank you so much, Marcus.

Marcus Harden: Thanks, Gerardo. And just to mention, we've got a few more areas of news coming out. As I mentioned, we'll be restarting drilling at the Chiefs Trends within the next couple of weeks. And we're also looking to announce the findings of that magnetic survey, as well, to start demonstrating that size potential, as well as some updates from Cowley Park and elsewhere along the belt as well at some of those other targets we're working at.

Gerardo Del Real: Good stuff. Looking forward to it. Thanks again, Marcus.

Marcus Harden: Thank you very much, Gerardo.

Gerardo Del Real: Alright, cheers.

Marcus Harden: Bye.