Categories: Base Metals / Precious Metals
Topics: General Base Metals / General Precious Metals

Hannan Metals (TSX-V: HAN) CEO Michael Hudson on Exploration Update at the Tabalosos Area of the Massive San Martin Copper-Silver Project in Peru

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the CEO of Hannan Metals (TSX-V: HAN)(OTC: HANNF), Mr. Michael Hudson. Mike, how are you?

Michael Hudson: Good morning from down under. Very well. Thanks, Gerardo. The spring is starting to dawn on us down here.

Gerardo Del Real: Listen, silver is over $27 headed to $28 and likely $30 soon. Copper is right at that $3 level. You just had some news that, for those that are paying attention and actually reading these releases, it's still early stage, but man, the scale of this project continues to grow. The headline reads, “Hannan Provides Update on the Tabalosos Copper-Silver Project in Peru.” There is a lot of juicy details in here. I'll let you paint the picture because it's your picture. A lot to like here, Mike.

Michael Hudson: Thanks, Gerardo. We're in eastern Peru. It's the San Martin project. It's 120 kilometers of strike from the northernmost part of our permit area down to the south, across a few different permits. We have a system here that is new. It's not really been explored before in any great detail. We're unraveling it piece by piece, of course, as we do as geologists. 

The focus for the last four or five months, and really of all the field work that we undertook right through until March, was focused on an area in the south called Sacanche, which is an 80-kilometer-long permit mining concession in its own right.

We put some more information out today on Tabalosos, which is 80 kilometers to the north of the southern part of Sacanche and offset a bit. It's all part of the trend, but it's a long way away. We found very similar style of mineralization at multiple levels. This is important. This is a sediment-hosted system, but it's got a few different styles. It's got a higher grade, thinner zone at the top of what we call the Sarayaquillo Formation. That's what we found here in Tabalosos and what we are finding in Sacanche. But equally, just a few hundred meters above that in the geological pancake layer we have another area where we found mineralization at Sacanche, and that's now evident here at Tabalosos. The same geology essentially with copper and silver mineralization exists in both areas.

This has really been helped pulled together by what we call a remote study. That's using satellite data to map the rocks. Actually, I've been quite surprised at how all the new data and the new technology has really advanced the ability to really understand what's happening on the ground, a thousand kilometers below those satellites that are above us in the sky.

It's coming together nicely. As I've said before, this is just another part. It's a bit earlier stage than Sacanche where we were doing a lot more of the groundwork, finding outcrops, starting to determine continuity between those outcropping areas. Tabalosos is mostly boulders, but we'll get back in there and we'll find the outcrops and do the work. It's a big system. Tabalosos is 30 kilometers long, something like that, in its own right. It's got multiple horizons. There's two trends there, so there's 60 kilometers of trend at Tabalosos alone. It's big and high grade and looking very interesting. As we've said, the continuity of these zones is the next important step to determine, and that we will.

Gerardo Del Real: I understand that you're planning geophysical surveys to advance the drill targeting, as you mentioned in the release. How is that coming along, and when do you plan on undertaking that?

Michael Hudson: That was the first time we put in the public domain about what we're thinking there. The idea was to get back here and conduct a lot more on the boots exploration with geological teams, conduct a lot of stream sediment sampling to try and narrow down the search space. The challenge here is to find the best parts earlier on so we can drill those. Lots of boots on the ground, just mapping and understanding. Of course, that's the frustration here is that San Martin is still in lockdown as one of the departments in Peru's rural provinces that hasn't opened up yet. It's just too challenging to undertake regional exploration on the ground.

We're doing things that can advance the project. This work has really helped refine and shortcut us at a level, this satellite or remote sensing work, and taking it to the next level is what we need to do. We're looking at flying LiDAR, which is a laser system to really map the landform through the vegetation, which is important here in the jungle. That will really give us another level of understanding about the geology and shortcutting to the better areas in this vast land package.

Then we're considering other techniques like airborne EM, which will pick these host horizons, ideally. There's a little bit more work to be done to do that. We're going through just determining availability of aircraft and the like now, so I can't give you a definitive timeframe. If we get access to the contractors, we will do it sooner than later.

Gerardo Del Real: There is copper. There's silver. It's high grade. Imagine if you bumped into some gold there, Mike. It's a lot of land to explore.

Michael Hudson: The analogue here is the Kupferschiefer in Poland. It's one of the largest systems on earth, along with the Central African Copper Belt, which is the other major sedimentary-hosted copper play in the world. Actually, the Kupferschiefer has gold associated with it. So gold is not unknown in these systems. You're tempting me because you know that there's a little bit of gold hanging around in this system. We haven't talked about it. We really don't know enough about it, but that's an obvious target for us to follow up also. That's where that stream sediment sampling will work very well. Ideally, we can start that before the year end.

Gerardo Del Real: A lot of targets, a lot of land. I believe it's the right team to explore this massive land package, given your background and your experience. I'm an excited shareholder. There's no if, ands, or buts about it. I'm biased. I'm a shareholder. I get the sense that the rest of this year and 2021, as it relates to San Martin, are going to be interesting to say the least.

Michael Hudson: Absolutely. There's a lot more to be done here. We're getting the permits granted on a regular basis now more so. There's activity at that level. We really look forward to getting on the ground. Hopefully some of the health outcomes of the people and the local people that we're working with trend in the right direction.

Gerardo Del Real: Absolutely. Mike, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate the update. I know there won't be a shortage of news, so I'm guessing and I suspect we'll chat soon.

Michael Hudson: Absolutely, Gerardo. Thanks, mate.

Gerardo Del Real: Thank you.

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