Categories: Energy / Precious Metals
Topics: General Energy / General Precious Metals

Mawson Gold (TSX: MAW) CEO Michael Hudson on High-Grade Hit in First Hole at Sunday Creek Gold Project in Australia & European Raw Materials Alliance Membership

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the chairman and CEO of Mawson Gold (TSX: MAW)(OTC: MWSNF), Mr. Michael Hudson. Mike, how are you?

Michael Hudson: Good morning from down under, Gerardo. Lovely to be with you.

Gerardo Del Real: It's a good day from down under. You should be called “Mawson Finds More Gold Limited.” You had some exciting news, two bits of news that I want to get into. The first, you drilled 15.2 meters of 3.7 grams per tonne gold from surface in your very first hole at Sunday Creek in Victoria, Australia. First off, congratulations. It's not very often that the first time you poke a hole into a property, you're able to walk on 15.2 meters of 3.7 grams per tonne gold. Congrats.

Michael Hudson: Yeah, it really demonstrates the prospectivity of Victoria and perhaps validates some of the story that we've been talking about, that this is essentially a grassroots play in a mature terrain, because people just haven't really looked for a hundred-plus years at these mineral systems.

Gerardo Del Real: You've completed three holes now. I assume that assays for the other two will be forthcoming in due order. How are the labs in Australia, and when do you anticipate those?

Michael Hudson: Well, we're doing a lot better than what some other labs around the world are. We're somewhere between one to two weeks. I think one week is the promised turnaround, but reality is it's close to the two-week turnaround for these assays. That's pretty good, considering that it's going into months in other parts of the world. We're using a lab here locally that services Fosterville Mine and Costerfield Mine. Of course, there's a lot of samples coming out both those places. So it's busy, but we're getting through things. That's a huge benefit for us.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, that's exciting if you're able to follow this hole up with anything similar to these grades from surface. Now, you make mention multiple times in the release of the intensity, style, and grade of mineralization observed in the drilling, so much so that a second drill rig will return to Sunday Creek this week. I don't assume that it's returning to not find gold.

Michael Hudson: Yeah, we drilled three holes in the last month at Sunday Creek. Then we sent the rig away to our Redcastle project, bought another rig in, so two rigs have been on Redcastle for the last few weeks. But after looking at these rocks and seeing this first drill hole come back and the context of the mineralization, we do really like. This has all the ingredients. The secret here is to start to really understand the structural story. 

This is the first oriented diamond drill core, the first diamond drill core into this mineralized system. Now we're drilling it along strike and to depth. The next hole you would see is below this one, about 50 meters below the first hole. So we'll start to determine if there's continuity there, and then we've drilled another hole about 340 meters along strike to start to develop the scale. Then that's what that extra rig will be down also to do, to increase the scale and determine the continuity, crack the structural understanding.

We're really looking forward to getting the geophysics, which has been a little slower than we hoped. They're busy still in Redcastle, but that will really help unravel things for us here at Sunday Creek to extend the drilling. We're sort of going baby steps with one rig, learning and finding. We've got high hopes for the geophysics to really help us also.

Gerardo Del Real: Can we touch a bit on Redcastle? You have a rig there that continues to drill 7 days a week. I know initially Redcastle was presented, or at least I observed it, as the project you were most excited about. Even if that's still the case, that excites me as a shareholder, because you starting off with 15.2 meters from surface at 3.7 grams per tonne gold is extremely exciting, considering that Redcastle, again, in my eyes was viewed as the main event initially.

Michael Hudson: Yeah, Redcastle was certainly, and is, an easier sell in many respects, as the grades were just so extreme that were mined. They mined 20,000 ounces in the first 6 years of that mining area at over 200 grams. So that's an easy pitch, I suppose. We've got to drill underneath, where there's 17 kilometers of veins there, and filter through where the best parts of the system are. Absolutely, that still holds as a great project in our viewpoint. 

We purchased this Sunday Creek project 100%. So that's 100% ours, and Redcastle is a joint venture. The Sunday Creek project, we focused on initially to purchase because we really liked what we saw there. Then Redcastle overtook us in enthusiasm. But two good projects, really. We've got rigs turning at both. What more could you really want?

Gerardo Del Real: Well, I'll tell you what more I could really want. I could want the project in Finland, which also has a significant gold and cobalt resource, to be invited to join the European Raw Materials Alliance, which I think, pun intended, is going to be critical in helping permit the project and also potentially find an offtake partner for the cobalt. Can you speak to that bit of news that you've just announced?

Michael Hudson: Yeah. It really shows the variety at Mawson in what we're doing. One day, we've announced initial results from Australia, and the next day, it just came out today, was the Raw Materials Alliance Network Association. We were invited to join that. That's a network of lots of industry, academia in Europe to develop their own supply chains, from raw material supply right through to processing plants, basically to build their own battery supply chain. It's a very serious business. Europe is almost getting to a point where it's really competing with Asia now in terms of where they will be in the battery supply chain. 

Of course, our project is one of the few 43-101 compliant resources for cobalt in Europe. It is a gold project, no doubt. It's got a potential cobalt byproduct. This invitation and association we've joined demonstrates the very real nature and opportunity that our Rajapalot project can provide for Finland and for Europe.

Gerardo Del Real: Can you provide an update on that project?

Michael Hudson: We've got a drill rig turning up there. We doubled the resource in the last few weeks up there. We're over 700,000 ounces gold equivalent. One rig is drilling along strike from the resources in summer-permitted areas. We've got something like 12 kilometers immediately along strike that we're testing with geophysics, which is the secret to determining or finding mineralization undercover up there, and then we're drilling those targets. 

I'm pretty bullish and excited. Finding something outside the current resource area in the summer-permitted areas is a real key for the project, because if we can drill all year-round on this project, at least part of it, that will really help fast track it. So all in order there. 

Then of course, there's another rig turning up very shortly into Mount Isa in Australia, which we can talk about on our next discussion.

Gerardo Del Real: You're going to need a bigger boat, Mr. Hudson. Congratulations. A lot, a lot of success in a relatively short amount of time. Now, of course, these are projects that you've developed and worked on over years. So it's not an overnight success, but it's really satisfying to see it all come together. And a lot of runway. A lot to look forward to before year end.

Michael Hudson: Absolutely. You do the hard yards in the more difficult times, and then the projects and companies that do well are those that can execute and really advance the top quartile projects. I'm very confident and happy to say, I think we've got a bunch of them in Mawson that we're advancing, and we've got the capital. 

You've also, just before I finish up, given me a name. We recently renamed Mawson, as you know, from Mawson Resources to Mawson Gold. If we just take the ticker MAW, we do have “More Gold.”

Gerardo Del Real: Well done, Mike. Well done. Anything else you'd like to add?

Michael Hudson: That's all. Thank you, Gerardo.

Gerardo Del Real: We'll chat soon.

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