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

Hannan Metals (TSX-V: HAN)(OTC: HANNF) CEO Michael Hudson Talks Exploration Momentum Ahead of Phase-1 Drilling At Valiente Copper-Gold Project, Peru

 

This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the chairman & CEO of Hannan Metals, a company that, I believe, is going to be one of, if not the most exciting drill story of 2025. I'm talking, of course, about Mr. Michael Hudson from Hannan Metals. 

Mike, it's great to have you back on. How are you? I know you've been busy, as have I. It's good to chat and catch up a bit.

Michael Hudson: I'm very well, thanks, Gerardo. It's been a busy start to the year. There's a bit of momentum in the industry, and a great time to have big copper and gold projects, I would say.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, let's get right into it. Not only do you have big copper and gold projects, you are on the verge, just months away, from starting to test and put the ‘truth machine’ to what I think is going to be an emerging, exciting, prolific, brand new copper-gold mineral district.

Within that, you have the DIA issued on three separate projects. And the latest news release highlights the Sortilegio copper-gold porphyry, which, of course, is part of the 100%-owned Valiente project ‘belt’… pick your name. 

I would love for you to give us your educated take on this specific project because this is now the third, potentially, as you describe it, company-making project that you’ll be testing here shortly.

Michael Hudson: Let's stand back. We have a new copper-gold porphyry, epithermal alkalic porphyry, and alkalic gold… so all of those different styles of mineralization…  emerging in a plus-100-km-long belt that we've got around 100,000 km staked. 

We've identified 18 different systems, and we've worked on five or six of them in more detail. And then, narrowing it down again, there are three of these systems that form an area called Belen over about 9 km. It has three different mineral systems within that 9.3 kilometers. 

We have, at the southern end, Ricardo Herrera, which is a copper plus or minus gold porphyry. At the northern end is Sortilegio, which we'll talk about, which is a copper-gold alkalic porphyry. And in between is Vista Alegre, which looks like an epithermal gold system. 

At the end of last year at Belen, over that 9.3 km, we ran a fairly extensive Induced Polarization (IP) geophysical survey that basically identifies sulfides and clays in the ground. And what's so important about sulfide and clay? Well, sulfide is either pyrite or chalcopyrite or other minerals that are sulfidic — and they actually hold a charge. 

When you put a charge into the ground and turn that charge off at surface, the sulfides release the charge they're holding slower than the surrounding rocks that are more resistive. You can measure chargeability and, as a proxy, measure sulfide. And the sulfides are generally associated with copper plus or minus gold; not always, but it's a pretty good link. 

And then, you can also measure resistivity, which is the inverse, in the geophysical world, to conductivity. If you have low resistivity, it's high conductivity, and that's where you get electricity passing literally through the rocks. 

If everything is conductive, like a copper wire in your house is conductive, we’re likely mapping not disseminated sulfides there because they need to be connected. We're mapping, most likely, clays, where, for example, if you have a wet sock, it’ll be more conductive than a dry sock. And wet clays that hold water are more conductive than a dry sandstone, if you like. 

We're mapping clays. And why are clays important? Because around these mineral systems, they form alteration that, when the metal-rich solutions come up from below, alter the rocks and convert them into clays. 

We want to see a mix of sulfides and clays in these systems, which can help us target these systems with drill holes when combined with the surface geochemistry and the mapping we've done. And that's what we've done at Sortilegio.

Gerardo Del Real: We often talk about exploration targets, and, obviously, there are ways to get to a ‘back of the napkin’ type of calculation. But in this case, the anomaly remains open to both the north and south. 

At what point do you decide to focus on the parts you’ve been able to derisk via the multiple disciplines, as opposed to continuing to chase it, because you have a wealth of targets here within Belen? And then, within each of the projects, several of those remain open. How do you prioritize those?

Michael Hudson: It's biting off as much as you can chew while demonstrating scale, I suppose. It's always a balance between demonstrating the scale of a system because nobody is interested in a small system, nor are we. But also, there's always scarce resources to run enough geophysics. 

So we go in there with cheaper methods such as soil sampling with portable XRFs rather than sending samples to the lab that may take 50 or 60 bucks per sample. And with an XRF, we can measure the base metals essentially for free. So we use a variety of methods to derisk targets. 

And running geophysics is not hugely expensive; this was maybe a C$100K to C$150K IP survey over the Belen area. We wanted to make sure we focused on what we thought were the best parts of the system. And 9 km is a big system, which we wanted to derisk for drilling.

Now, drilling is the most expensive part of our business. You're drilling probably for around C$300 per meter. Every core tray that has four meters of core is a C$1,200 bunch of rock. And you want to treat that like a very expensive Van Gogh painting or something like that… I suppose a Van Gogh is a bit more than twelve-hundred bucks… but it's very, very expensive. 

You want to drill the best parts of the system so it's always using cheaper and progressively more expensive methods to derisk targets. And at Sortilegio, we've now matched the geochemistry with the IP. The copper at surface matches the chargeable anomalies from surface going to depths of about 400 to 500 meters. And we’ve now extended those anomalies over the Sortilegio area around 1.2 kilometers. 

That’s the business of exploration: you take big swings with confidence but within the budget as the cost of capital at these low market cap companies like Hannan can be blown out if you spend too much money inappropriately too early.

Gerardo Del Real: What are you hoping to see when the truth machine starts turning at Sortilegio?

Michael Hudson: Well, we hope to find the higher-grade parts of the system early on. There's no doubt that we have two porphyries and an epithermal system that have a lot of metal associated with them. 

The key question is, at what grade is that metal when you get below the oxide zone that tends to leach the metals in the top 30, 40, 50 meters? It’s about getting below that. And what is the inherent grade of these systems? Every mineral system forms distinctly even though we tend to put things in boxes. 

We need to learn the structural controls and the controls on where that grade is and get to that early on. That’s our next challenge, and that's what we do. It’s what we’re pretty good at doing, or at least what we think we’re pretty good at doing. And there's a fair bit of luck involved but you've got to create your own luck and understand it.

It's all a mix of where you target first. We have all of the data, and we have permits almost in hand. We have the DIA — the Declaracion de Impacto Ambiental — which was granted at the end of November of last year. 

We've done all of the work post-DIA to collect the CIRA, or the archeological certificate. We have all of the sign-offs from the local people. We have an Initiate Activities application in now. And our guidance is still the same. 

In Q2 2025, we hope to be drilling this Belen system as we advance the other parts of the project, including Previsto, which is truly the monster in terms of how it sits on the scale of that system 20 km away. So a lot of exciting things are happening.

Gerardo Del Real: I'm excited for these three projects. I can't wait to get an update on the monster. Let's be frank, there are definitely eyeballs on this initial drill program that we're hoping happens here in early Q2. 

Those three projects, again, you've described as potential company-makers each respectively. We have zero doubt that Previsto is indeed a potential company-maker that can be something, as you described, globally, very, very significant. 

I know there's still data coming in and that you've done a lot of great work on that project. I can't wait to see what else you're able to discover there and then see you and the team prioritize the next steps as it relates to permitting on that front.

Michael Hudson: It's all primed. As I've said for many years, Hannan is one of those companies you need to buy and put in your back pocket. Well, please do that. The waiting is almost over.

Gerardo Del Real: I’m looking forward to an exciting 2025. Mike, thank you as always for your time. Hopefully, we're chatting soon.

Michael Hudson: Thanks, Gerardo.

Gerardo Del Real: Alright, cheers.

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