Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

K2 Gold (TSX-V: KTO) CEO Stephen Swatton on High-Grade Drill Results at the Mojave Project in Southern California

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the president and CEO of K2 Gold, Mr. Stephen Swatton. Steve, I would ask how you're doing, but I got to imagine you're doing pretty well.

Stephen Swatton: Oh, fantastic. These are amazing results. I couldn't be happier, thanks, Gerardo.

Gerardo Del Real: Let me provide a bit of context. You just announced 86.9 meters of four grams per tonne gold from surface at the Mojave high-grade oxide gold project. You announced three holes. You hit on all three, spectacular grades. Can you provide some context there?

Stephen Swatton: Yeah, these are just the first three holes of 17, and it's not as if we're selecting them for any particular reason. We've started from the north of our property and we're working south. We started drilling about two months ago, so samples have been in the lab. We were expecting something in the same order of the BHP holes, where one-and-a-half to two-gram materials. To get four grams is a complete surprise, came out of left field and we're very happy. We're trying to explain why the grades are higher. We think we have some internal theories as to why that might be, but the reality is we're not dealing with a typical epithermal. We're dealing with something that may be something transitional between epithermal and Carlin, which would pump the volume up and also may well increase the grade as well, based on the analogy we have with other types of epithermal styles of mineralization, epithermal Carlin, similar in China.

Gerardo Del Real: These three holes were just from the Dragonfly zone, correct?

Stephen Swatton: Yes, from one location, we set up a drill and just turned it in different directions. And if you remember, Gerardo, we inherited a drill program from SSR Mining. And so we couldn't actually alter the sites of the holes, but suffice to say that we were just shy of a 100 meters away from any previous drill hole that BHP have drilled. So we really are adding to the information database, we're not detracting from it at all.

Gerardo Del Real: What comes next, Steve? Everybody obviously is excited about the results. The stock is up some 30% plus. When do you expect the next set of assays?

Stephen Swatton: They'll be giving through every week now, because this is just the first batch. And so I'm not quite sure if we're going to be announcing every week, but certainly we'll be receiving results on an ongoing basis. We received these Thursday night, and we also have some rock samples that we're expecting through too. So yeah, I can see right through until January right now, we're going to have a continual news flow if we wanted to release everything. But I have a feeling people will get a little bit tired of hearing the news if we just put it up single hole by single hole, but yeah, we'll have a lot of news coming out, Gerardo.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. How’s the relationship with local stakeholders and the local community, Stephen?

Stephen Swatton: I went down and lived in California for three months, as you know. And when I arrived there, there was a little bit of, I would say suspicion from some people about what we're up to down there, because the last mining to go on was in the late 1970s. But I would say I've got nothing but support from the local business owners. We meet on a regular basis with each and every one of them in local Lone Pine.

Look, we are in California, there's going to be some people who don't like mining, as is anywhere in the world for that matter in this day and age that we live in. But the local people feel the real pinch right now with the COVID, and they've now been called code red in the local area. There's very little for them to make money out of right now in terms of business. So they can really see the advantages of having a diverse economy right now, more so than ever. They rely on passing tourism and we could offer high-paid jobs that would be a nice counter-lever to whatever tourism that is down locally. So I would say that we've got very strong support right now.

Gerardo Del Real: I would encourage everyone to look through the release and click on the figure that you included, which shows all of the target areas. The bottom line, Stephen, is these results are excellent, but how many targets do you have on the property right now? Because I know you're looking to initiate an expanded drill program in early 2021, but the project is massive, target-wise, right?

Stephen Swatton: Yes it is. And you know, if I said a number, it would be a bit superfluous, because every time we look at one there's... For example, this Gold Valley area, which is, I'm just looking here on the map in front of me, five kilometers north of Newmont zone, we're seeing some interesting values there. So we've got five kilometers worth of interesting-looking locations, of which we'd like to drill all of them. This 30-site program will at least tell us some of the answers to some of it. But yeah, we're not short of targets, that's to say the least.

Gerardo Del Real: Good problem to have. Stephen, congratulations again, and I suspect we'll be chatting again soon.

Stephen Swatton: Yeah. Thanks very much, Gerardo, appreciate the call.

Gerardo Del Real: Thank you.