Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

K2 Gold (TSX-V: KTO) CEO Stephen Swatton on Granting of BLM Permits for Drill Program at the High-Grade Oxide Gold Mojave Project in California

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the President and CEO of K2 Gold (TSX-V: KTO)(OTC: KTGDF), Mr. Stephen Swatton. Steve, how are you today?

Stephen Swatton: Very good. Thanks very much, Gerardo. Nice to speak to you again.

Gerardo Del Real: It's great chatting again. Congratulations are in order. The last time you and I spoke we were expecting the approval of the Mojave Project exploration drilling program, which is due to commence shortly. That approval has been granted. This is one of the most exciting gold exploration projects in the space right now. The stock has performed well here in the past several weeks, but there is a lot of upside left. Let's talk about the fully-permitted and financed drill program that is expected to begin in August.

Stephen Swatton: Gerardo, what we decided to do is we're drilling at 4 sites. We're drilling 16 holes in total, so 4 holes per site. We'll probably be drilling to a couple of hundred meters. This will give us a much better idea as to the nature and the coarseness or fineness of the gold and a lot of aspects of this asset that we can ascertain from these 16 holes. 

It's significant that we had no idea that we were going to receive this permit. As your listeners know, we've been backwards and forwards with the Bureau of Land Management, BLM, for some time. We received word that we've got the thumbs up on Friday. I think I talked about last time, we've also submitted a second program of drilling which is land-based, because this 16 hole is helicopter-based.

With these two drill permits in place, we will have a good idea of the nature of the resource maybe. We may be able to put some resource numbers around. Its early days yet, but we will have a much better idea. But this is so significant for us because it means to say that we can get our feet on the ground, get a drill in the ground, and begin to understand this amazing resource.

Gerardo Del Real: Let's provide a bit of context. You're drilling the gold-rich eastern side of the property. You're drilling in an area where, if I'm not mistaken, the structures that you're targeting are very similar – and I think you described them as identical – to those that were drilled by BHP and Newmont in the '80s and '90s. The reason that's significant, and correct me if I'm wrong, is because all 35 of those holes intersected gold mineralization. Is that correct, Steve?

Stephen Swatton: Yes, that is correct. There were 35 holes drilled. What we're doing is drilling two of those zones, the Newmont and the Dragonfly zones. Yes, structurally related. Just to give your listeners a bit of context, these are very similar to the types of mineralization that you see in Beatty. Beatty is about 50 miles, 60 miles northeast of Mojave. There's about 4 or 5 million ounces of gold in a very similar geological environment to ours. We're slightly different, but the nuances are not that much different. We think that we have a good opportunity to find a similar style of mineralization in an area which has been previously drilled. We're drilling the same units that BHP and Newmont had very successful intersections.

Gerardo Del Real: I've been very open with subscribers of my newsletter, Junior Mining Monthly and Junior Mining Trader, the two newsletters that I write for Outsider Club. That's a paid service. I have no trouble saying it publicly because I believe this will be the case, if you're able to even come close to historic drilling, and I believe you will by the way, the stock will be trading in triple digits very, very soon. I want to be clear to everybody that this is a high-grade oxide gold project. Correct, Steve?

Stephen Swatton: Yeah, it is. It's much higher than some of the analogous deposits around us. At the end of the day, if you've got 0.5 gram material or more, the likelihood is that you will have a good shot at making it into a mine. So far, we have one hole, for example, 99 meters at 1 gram. So you can see we're almost double what would be considered the lower of the mineable grade that you could possibly find. 

So, yes, we have high-grade. At the end of the day, until we do the drilling we won't know. But the reason that we're so excited about it is because of the grade. Also it's at surface, it's close to surface. So, very excited about this, and we're putting all of the necessary points together to make sure that we have a drill program that will probably be going towards the end of August or beginning of September.

Gerardo Del Real: You've already filed an mended Plan of Operation to the BLM for up to 120 holes, correct?

Stephen Swatton: That is correct. We're having constant discussions with them, we must speak to them three or four times a week. The nice thing for me is that I'm using a consultant company out of Sacramento who have done this their whole lives. They know exactly the questions that need to be asked and the answers that then need to be given, so we're very happy with them. We're also using the same lawyer and legal firm that permitted most of the operating mines and the past operating mines in California. 

So we're very much a California-oriented company. We happen to be headquartered up in Vancouver, I know. But our geologist is American, and we've used American consultants, and we're using local consultants to do all the work with the BLM. What we're trying to do is make sure that we don't have any missteps along the way here.

Gerardo Del Real: Steve, good update. Congrats on the permit. I get the sense I'll be congratulating you again once assays start trickling in. Anything else you'd like to add to that?

Stephen Swatton: Yeah, maybe I will reconnect once we actually start the drilling, once the drilling started, and by then we'll have some results from some of the ancillary work that we're doing on the anomalies that we found with some of the other work that we've done.

Gerardo Del Real: Fantastic, I'm looking forward to it. Steve, thanks again for your time.

Stephen Swatton: Thank you very much, Gerardo.