Hannan Metals (TSX: HAN)(OTC: HANNF) CEO Michael Hudson on Advancing Multiple Copper-Gold-Silver Projects in Peru

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the CEO of Hannan Metals — Mr. Michael Hudson. Mike, how are you this morning?

Michael Hudson: Top of the world down under! Thanks, Gerardo.

Gerardo Del Real: It's great to have you back on. You've been very consistent in describing the San Martin Project… “Projects,” I should say… as basin-scale and how important it is to establish and continue to discover the continuity and the consistency and the scale of the mineralization. 

And you had some news today that sure in the heck advances that to now 24 kilometers of strike at just Tabalosos East. And these are extensions of the sub-cropping; mineralized copper-silver shale. That in itself would be fantastic if it weren't followed by the fact that that's only 3% of the total tenured area in the joint venture with JOGMEC. 

Can you provide some context on the news today?

Michael Hudson: You've done your reading well… you picked up the highlights there, Gerardo! We've got a basin-scale project, and it extends over 120 kilometers with multiple trends within that strike. 

We've always said there's a hell of a lot of copper here after our first discoveries that look like they have context from the data from oil exploration that occurred through the '70s and '80s and '90s that we had available to us. Then, we also said that our challenge here will be to determine the continuity of mineralization at a scale that makes it work from a mineral exploration and eventual mining point of view. 

So that's always been our aim… and to find grades that, of course, will work within these pancake horizons… and we're talking, probably, north of 2% copper we need beyond to work.

And these data that came out today are soil samples that extend beyond known outcrops — and outcrops are only about 1% or less of the area. This is thick jungle. And we've got a technique where we're soil sampling, which is a very old and tried and true technique in mineral exploration. But we're doing it here with a lot more efficiency. 

We're using three handheld XRF analyzers in the field. So we can directly detect where we have anomalies. Then, we're taking the samples back from the field and then processing them like a little mini-laboratory to get consistency and correct data.

But we're getting turnaround within a day or two or immediately at site… but then, a day or two by our own teams processing those samples. So we can go into areas that are tough and make decisions in the field and then turn them around and infill. And that should not be discounted in terms of the methodology. 

And in fact, Olympus, who makes these machines, has had Lars Dahlenborg, our president, just recently record a video, a promo essentially, for their technology to demonstrate how we're actually moving this technology forward in the industry. 

And then, the continuity is the key point here that I think is being shown over this large scale — 24 kilometers — and we're seeing line-to-line-to-line join up with this same stratigraphic position.

Gerardo Del Real: You said ‘teams,’ plural. And I understand there's three geological teams just in this specific area. Is that accurate?

Michael Hudson: That's right. And then, we have another team down south on our own ground at Previsto. So there's a lot of people here working. We're going now full-time with those teams shifting into the bushes, as we'd say in Australian lingo, but into the jungle, as it were. Every two weeks, they're on and one week off and they're rotating through. So we're collecting lots of information. 

We're advancing the permitting towards drilling… collecting lots of environmental information… working hand-in-hand with the local communities in which there are two specific hamlets that we're working with. And we've got their great support. And that is probably the most important aspect of this project as much as anything. So it's all coming together. 

The next stages are to trench a lot of these soil samples, or pick them, and then start working out the geology in much more detail and mapping those different strata; the facies as we call them. 

The facies are the different types of rocks that form layers within the very detail of what we're mapping. And parts of those layers will be copper-bearing. And to really understand the variation and look for the thickest and highest grade parts of this system now that we know it's continuous over such large areas and also forms in a way that we were hoping in terms of this sediment-hosted copper model with a mineralized shale at the top where an oxidized reduced package interacts.

Gerardo Del Real: You are a top-ten land holder in Peru; tenured land. The project and the area we're talking about today is, of course, part of that San Martin JOGMEC JV that I referenced earlier. But there is a whole lot of other project and land to explore. 

How are things coming along elsewhere, Mike?

Michael Hudson: Well, you said it… Tabalosos is 24 kilometers of strike — 3% of our area with JOGMEC — which is 800-odd-thousand hectares. And then, JOGMEC ground is only one-third of Hannan's total land position in Peru in granted and applied-for mining concessions. So we've got a hell of a lot of ground… one of the top-ten holders, as you’ve said. 

We're working successfully down in Previsto with that one team down there doing a lot of stream sediment sampling, and mapping, and identifying a mineral system there. Earlier-stage than what we've got here in Tabalosos because it's only been a few months in progress.

Attracting a lot of attention in the industry… these are areas that really have been very poorly explored in the past. And I think we're starting to prove that these porphyry centers we see closer to the coast and in the Sierra extend throughout into these eastern areas. 

And that's pretty groundbreaking in itself that we can get these porphyries existing so far east. Very similar to Bajo de la Alumbrera in Argentina, which, at the time, was thought of as impossible to have these porphyries or intrusives forming so far inland. And it seems that's what we're doing again down in Previsto.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent work! I know there's a lot left to do in 2021. I know that we are all hoping that early-2022 is when we actually see the drill bit turning. Is that still the plan?

Michael Hudson: We're on a path with the environmental permitting that we need to go through in Peru. And we've had the teams there mapping. We're working with the social side of things. We're collecting all of the environmental data. The monitoring is happening now. 

So yes, it's all on path to the first or second quarter of next year… that seems very possible.

Gerardo Del Real: Exciting times! Anything else to add, Mike?

Michael Hudson: That's it Gerardo. Very exciting. Two major mineral systems on their way.

Gerardo Del Real: And to be clear for everybody, there's three major commodities, thus far, that we were targeting in this land package, right? It's gold, it's silver, and copper. I know we talked silver and copper today but there's some pretty compelling gold targets I understand.

Michael Hudson: Well, the porphyries we talked about in Prevista look like they're copper-gold porphyries. And so we've got the two different styles; the sediment-hosted copper-silver in and around Tabalosos and JOGMEC, and then, further south, copper-gold porphyries in our own right.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Mike, thank you so much for that thorough update. I appreciate it.

Michael Hudson: That's great. Thanks, Gerardo.

Gerardo Del Real: Alright, be safe out there.

Michael Hudson: You too.

Click here to see more from Hannan Metals Ltd.