Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Mawson Gold (TSX: MAW) CEO Michael Hudson on Drilling at F11 Target Mount Isa Southeast Project, Australia

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the Chairman and CEO of Mawson Gold, Mr. Michael Hudson. Mike, how are you?

Michael Hudson: I'm good. Thanks, Gerardo. Very well. Nice to be back.

Gerardo Del Real: Thanks for coming on, on such short notice. Stock was down a little bit today, which I thought was a bit silly, given the fact that you announced a technical success on what was essentially a free hole. It was a government funded exploration hole that there's actually a lot to like about, given that you are exploring in elephant country. You do a much more elegant and accurate job of explaining the details and providing the context, but would you care to comment on today's news, the drilling at F11 Target in Australia?

Michael Hudson: Sure. First up, it's in Queensland, which is 2,500 kilometers away from Victoria. Australia is a big place, and this is a very separate project to Victoria, if people are confusing the two. Where we have been drilling and on two projects down in Victoria consistently, and there's a lot more results that are in the lab at the moment that we'll see more of soon. This was a separate project in Mount Isa. Mount Isa is located in Queensland. It's produced, 5-10% of the world's base metals, as an area. It's huge. It extends undercover, as far as it outcrops, and it hasn't been explored undercover beyond very shallow, and when I say "shallow," 50-80 meter thickness of cover, so a vast majority of this block that's produced a majority of the world's base metals and silver and that included, and some gold, has been essentially unexplored.

We were funded for $200,000 Australian by the Queensland government to test a big gravity anomaly undercover, that was around 300 meters undercover, that hadn't had a drill hole within 10 kilometers of this area. This was the government looking to gain new information and hopefully make a discovery based on that new information. We put out news today on that drill hole. It was fully funded, a free roll of the dice on a big, big high-risk target for Mawson shareholders. We put out the geology and some of the description, and there's a link in the press release to our Chief Geologist giving an explanation of the rocks.

I think the way you stated it, Gerardo, is very fair. It is a technical success. Certainly in the information we gave, it's not the next Ernest Henry or Olympic Dam, the next big iron oxide, copper gold deposit that, that we can see in the hole, but that being said, there was interesting rocks that had sulfides, including a little bit of copper, through the hole in the right alteration. Exploration is a business that you piece bits of information together, little bits of information, and create a story to lead you to the target, and that story is scientifically driven. We like what we see in this hole, and whether we drill, need to drill more holes into this or we joint venture it out, we'll see.

We've already got universities involved to study this, so we've got theses being written on this one drill hole, because it is so unique. We'll see where it goes, but let's see where the assays are in the new year. Then we'll make some decisions.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. You referenced Victoria and your, the main focus in Australia right now. How are things coming along on that front, in regards to the assay labs and the assays that are pending in the drill program?

Michael Hudson: Yeah, the assay labs are a little slower than what we were told and what we saw earlier on, so we've actually only put whole results out from three holes, but there's a swag of holes. We've had two rigs operating for the last few months, and Sunday Creek is certainly delivering. We've seen that in the first three holes, and we've got many more holes that we're anticipating the results will be released soon, so that will have more results.

Redcastle's a bit more of a head-scratcher for us, and we'll put out a whole series of results there in one batch, because the initial drilling is seeing interesting rocks, but we're still working out exactly where to point the drill rig, and we're still drilling, and we're still collecting all that geophysical information. By the end of the year, we'll have all that information, that early drilling, the geophysical information, and become very predictive about where we want to go with the drill rig in the new year. We're actually extremely well-placed in there, and I know this it's been a month or two of a lack of news flow from Victoria, but never fear. We have lots of results imminent, and while that's been happening, we made another discovery in Finland, of course. If you look at our news flow, it's been gold, gold, gold, gold. Hopefully, we can continue that trend.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, not only gold, it should be said, high grade gold and often at surface.

Michael Hudson: Exactly, exactly. It is actually a good thing to have: fully permitted, fully funded, finding gold in a gold bull market.

Gerardo Del Real: Well said, Mr. Hudson. Anything else you'd like to add?

Michael Hudson: That's a good way to leave it.

Gerardo Del Real: Fantastic. Thanks again for the update. It's appreciated.

Michael Hudson: Thanks, Gerardo.

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