Hannan Metals (TSX-V: HAN)(OTC: HANNF) CEO Michael Hudson on Exploring Copper-Gold-Silver for a Billion Dollar Market Cap

Michael Hudson: I'm great, Gerardo. From the floor of the PDAC, so there's a bit of noise in the background, but a lot of enthusiasm here in Toronto as things have opened up and the world congregates and the mining industry congregates again for the first time.

Michael Hudson: Yeah, this is what we've been talking about for the last three or four months in terms of earlier stage exploration. And we are very excited to answer that question upfront. What we've done through the project is run regional stream sediments that highlighted the big red spots on the map where we should go. We went into those areas, did a lot of boulder tracing, and then followed up those areas with just ridge top soil sampling, identified some anomalies. And that's where we were really a few months ago.

Over the last few months, we've systematically sampled this porphyry at a hundred meter grid spacing with soils, done lots of work looking at rocks, mapping, found outcropping mineralization. And then what's most exciting, and this is truly a very important point, is that we found the source to the soils, and we found a big leach cap of porphyry mineralization associated with those soils.

The leach cap has lower grades of copper because by definition it's leached. But the grades that we're seeing in the leach cap are actually very high and would suggest that the mineralization, when we get into what we call the hypogene or the primary unweathered sulfide rock, will be very good. We're seeing a chalcocite blanket develop at the lower levels of the system. When we get into the creeks up the hilltops over that kilometer plus distance, we're seeing a big zone porphyry with all the right alteration that is targeting into the center of this porphyry.

We critically see in every geologist who I ever meet with, they say, "Have you got any quartz veining?" And quartz veining and stockworking is what brought the metal in. And we need complex quartz veins in that intrusive rock to bring grade up. And we see all the right veins and lots of frequency of those veins. So it's a very exciting thing. You don't always walk on top of a porphyry that looks like it's well mineralized. And this is one of seven intrusive centers we've got in this new belt that has never really been recognized before out in the eastern side of the Andes.

Michael Hudson: We need to drill the bloody thing, Gerardo ,is probably where we need to get to. Technically before that, we need to do a bit more work to identify those drill targets, but that's not withstanding. We're starting our drill permitting now on this project, which clearly that's the ultimate step. But what you'll see between now and then is lots of trench sampling. We're chasing the SolGolds, the Filos, the Solarises of the world here. That's what they've got, these copper gold porphyries in the Andes, and they're billion dollar plus companies, and that's what we could become if we're successful here. If you look at some of the discovery history at SolGold, their first leg up was when they demonstrated high grade or grade mineralization that porphyry copper grade mineralization in trenches. And that's what we are doing now. So we're trenching this porphyry copper with trenching as we speak. And that's the next lot of data to come to the table.

Michael Hudson: North of a billion to north of $2 billion. And that's what we're chasing here. We're chasing big company targets. We're chasing what these systems will be. What we have found on the eastern side of the Andes here has the potential to be worked on for the next hundred years. And it is truly potentially a game changer for that part of Peru. And then we're just very excited. Of course, it's a process, but Hannan could get a great rerate if we start trenching good grades of mineralization and ultimately drill it. And we haven't got a timeframe on drilling yet. I don't want to really go on verbally and say when we'll be drilling. Peru is hard and slow without a doubt, but we've learned a lot on how to permit these areas over the last few years, and we're working as hard as possible to be drilling as soon as possible into early next year, ideally. But let's see how we go.

Michael Hudson: That's a simple recipe. If we're not welcome, then we literally don't want to be there. If we're not welcome, then why try and fight a local community to gain access? We've got such big areas, and genuinely, we are being welcomed into these areas most of the time. And then I just spent the last week in Peru. I spoke to a lot of these villages and tried to understand their motivations and what they wanted. And I told them they have the power in their hands, and if they want us here, then we'll be here, and if they don't, then we won't be, and we want to work with them closely and openly and transparently for the betterment of them and their communities and ultimately their children.

Michael Hudson: I think we're pretty much done. I'm uber excited about what we're finding down in these areas. And I've said to you, I think, before that I think this will be probably my career discovery in terms of scale and opportunity. So let's see if we can make that happen.

Michael Hudson: Thanks, Gerardo.