Categories: Base Metals
Topics: General Base Metals

Hannan Metals (TSX-V: HAN) CEO Michael Hudson Delivers Maiden Mineral Resource at Kilbricken Zinc Project in Ireland

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me all the way from Italy is Chairman and CEO of Hannan Metals (TSX-V: HAN)(OTC: HANNF), Mr. Michael Hudson. Mike, how are you this afternoon?

Michael Hudson: Buongiorno, Gerardo. How are you? I'm very well.

Gerardo Del Real: Saludos, Miguel, saludos. It's great to speak with you. Thank you for taking the time. I know that you've been very, very busy on a European tour there that's been productive, so thank you for making time today.

Michael Hudson: You're always welcome.

Gerardo Del Real: Well listen, Hannan had some pretty important news yesterday. A milestone for the company. You released your maiden mineral resource estimate for your high-grade zinc project there in Ireland. I would love to get the details. It was pretty impressive and I'd love to get the details and talk a bit about the upside there, because there's a lot of upside still with the project.

Michael Hudson: Absolutely. The resource is a first for the project. We purchased the project from Lundin Mining, who'd put 118 kilometers and around $25 million US into the project, and it's quite unusual, actually, that nothing had ever been in the public domain with that much drilling on any project anywhere. We were the benefactors of that data, and we pulled it together and really tried to understand the geology and the mineralization, and we've come to that conclusion with independent qualified persons and this first resource has shot us into the top 10 discoveries ever made in Ireland, and Ireland has made the zinc news for many years now. There's been no more zinc found in any jurisdiction on a per square kilometer basis.

We've got an established resource now that's a very good start, that's at 2.7 million tonnes at just south of 9% zinc equivalent indicated and 1.7 million tonnes at a little over grade 8.2% zinc equivalent in the inferred category. Those two categories are just the confidence we have with the drilling. There's a lot more tonnes in the indicated category, meaning that it's been drilled with a lot of consistency and very close spacing by Lundin, so that adds to the confidence level, I suppose, that we have at this stage of the resource. Clearly, and as you said, it's a very good start, but there's a hell of a lot of exploration upside here. We can expand this resource internally in the resource area. We can expand it within kilometers of the resource, and then we have our larger land package that's 40 kilometers that is still very underexplored.

Gerardo Del Real: Now, Mike, this resource, the deposit so far, it's open in all directions. Is that correct?

Michael Hudson: Absolutely. The resource is made up of two bodies that have been discovered so far, and these are Irish systems developing multiple bodies. So most of the drilling when into the Chimney zone, which we call the upper zone, of this deposit, and that is a much higher grade part of the system. It's closer to 11% zinc equivalent, and that's where some of these spectacular grades that we saw in the drilling have now emerged into this resource. The lower zone, the discovery was only made towards the end of the program. That's got only 20% of the drilling of that upper zone. The lower zone is called the Fort zone.

So the Fort is infinitely open. The upper zone, the Chimney, we're looking at repeats of that updip and along strike as well. So it really is a drill exercise and there's some very strong and coherent anomalies that we're very much looking forward to test. In fact, we're testing some of them right now, of course, with drill rigs turning.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Now, I know you completed your first hole, I believe a week or a week and a half ago. How is drilling progressing right now, Mike?

Michael Hudson: We've just finished a second hole, and the results for both those holes are in the lab and imminent from the first hole, which was a 20 meter step-out, the second hole was a 50 meter step-out, looking to build tonnes around that resource area. So none of the drilling that we're completing today is included in the resource area. The maiden resource worked on the earlier data collected from 2008 to 2012. So when your listeners see new results, that will be in addition to the mineral resource that we've just put out.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Well, I'm looking forward to those results, Mike. Those will be important, and I'm hoping that you're able to join me here soon, as soon as those assays are released. Is there anything else that you'd like to add, Mike?

Michael Hudson: Grade, grade, and grade, really, I suppose is the key and this is the right project, as I've said, for having those grades. It's in a jurisdiction where we can drill a lot more and we can expand that resource area if we have geological good fortune, and that's what we're all in the business, of course, of doing. And it's the right time. Zinc is seeing a revival again. It's up to higher levels in terms of price than we've seen since January, so it's certainly the right time to be expanding a zinc resource.

Gerardo Del Real: Before I let you go, Mike, I do have one last question. You mentioned that there's been approximately between $25 and 30 million now, spent on the project. What's Hannan's market cap right now, because it's tiny.

Michael Hudson: It's a third of that, essentially. It's around $10 million market cap.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. And how does that compare, relative to your peers in the zinc space?

Michael Hudson: Well, I think this resource is just being absorbed, right? It's been out for 24 hours or something like that. If you look at the benchmark on just simply pounds of zinc in the ground, I think that your listeners will see that we're very undervalued on that basis alone, let alone the expansion upside that exists. So Hannan is at a great position, I think, for people to do their due diligence on in terms of potentially investing.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent, excellent. Mike, again, I want to thank you so much. I really appreciate you joining me today. I hope to have you back on, as I mentioned earlier, once those assays are released and we could talk a little bit more in detail about that upside potential and the exploration potential on the property.

Michael Hudson: Thanks so much, Gerardo. It's great speaking to you again.