Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Mawson Gold (TSX: MAW) CEO Michael Hudson on Mawson's Methodical but Aggressive Approach with 9 Drill Rigs Turning by Year's End at Gold Projects in Finland and Australia

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. I'm very well, thank you.

Gerardo Del Real: Good morning from down under. You are increasing your exposure by 73% in the down under, as you put it. Can we talk about the recent bit of news? You've been incredibly busy on multiple fronts. I thought it'd be a good opportunity to kind of summarize the recent activity here.

Michael Hudson: Well, as I tell many people, we've got 9 drill rigs turning this year before the end of the year, with many of them underway. We're doing new deals, consolidating and expanding ground and obtaining new goldfields here in Victoria to explore. This is the time to make the discoveries and expand those discoveries we've already made, Gerardo, when the opportunity is being rewarded.

Gerardo Del Real: You have now expanded your exposure in Victoria to 471 square kilometers. Can we talk about the joint ventures in your most recent transaction here?

Michael Hudson: It's the Whroo joint venture, W-H-R-double-O. Just think of it like kangaroo, so very Australian. Whroo was one of the more significant epizonal fields in Victoria.

Just to give you the background, again, that I've spoken about before, there's two very different orogenic events that formed the humongous amount of gold that's come out of Victoria, 80 million ounces. Victoria was bigger at times than the Californian gold rush at the same time. More ounces came out of Victoria than California. It was on par, one of the major gold rushes of the world. A majority of the ounces came out from 1851 to pre-World War I. 

That was predominantly out of one style, we call the mesozonal style. Rush forward in the last two or three years, we have produced more gold from Victoria since those days, and that's primarily due to Fosterville, of course. Fosterville is a different orogenic event, formed in different ways, formed in different geographical areas. It's 60 million years later than the mesozonal style, and that's what we're exploring for. 

There's something like 8 historic fields that include Fosterville, that include Costerfield of Mandalay Resources, and we've got three of them. We've got Sunday Creek, Redcastle, and now we've got Whroo. This new area is like the other epizonal fields. Nobody has simply looked to depth for these high grades that we know that conform in these epizonal fields and that Fosterville has demonstrated so well.

We are going to apply the same recipe, if you like. Understanding the system structurally is the key, so how the plumbing worked to get to the gold to where it's dropped out. We know there's been a lot of gold there. The old timers only mined down to 50 meters on average because the water table beat them. We'll run lots of geophysics to understand the structural context and also drill diamond drilling early so we can see the rocks, understand them. That's what we're doing, of course, now at both Redcastle and Sunday Creek.

Gerardo Del Real: It sounds like, and we joked off-air, a methodical but aggressive approach in the context of what I think is going to be a historic precious metals market. Is that an accurate description of your approach there, Mike?

Michael Hudson: You do well in this business when you make discoveries and top quartile discoveries that are advancing in a bull market. That's what we've got in Finland. We've done it up there. We've got a resource that's heading towards 1 million ounces and going to get a lot bigger. In Australia now, we're taking those first steps to doing the same thing.

Gerardo Del Real: Typically, this time of year, Nick Hodge and myself would be at the New Orleans Investment Conference, kicking the tires on new companies and catching up with current companies that we cover, or our clients.

Mawson, obviously, has attracted a lot of attention recently with the aggressive but methodical approach that it's taken. You have the treasury to execute. Can you provide a brief summary of what to expect the remainder of the year for those that may be new to the story?

Michael Hudson: Yeah, nine rigs turning on four projects. We've got one rig turning currently in Finland. There's another four rigs, or five in total, turning up in December to expand the resource there. We've got two rigs that will just continue turning in Australia. We've got another rig turning up just very, very shortly on the along strike extensions and parallel to one of the world's largest silver deposits up in the Mount Isa block of Queensland. That is a fully-funded hole from the government of Queensland. We are very fortunate that the shareholders can benefit at no cost. Then we've got a partner drilling in Oregon on an epithermal field there where they are earning an interest.

Lots of news flow from drilling. We've got three geophysical teams going gangbusters. I think in the next month you can expect more results from Australia, results from Finland, where we're drilling in summer-permitted areas. That will be play-repeat-play-repeat as the year goes forward.

Gerardo Del Real: I mentioned that I'm at the virtual New Orleans Investment Conference because we couldn't be there in person this year. You are in the field as we speak, correct?

Michael Hudson: I am. I'm bouncing around in a Land Cruiser four-wheel drive that the Australian geologists like to drive. Exactly.

Gerardo Del Real: I'll let you get to it. Go find some more gold, Mike. Thank you so much.

Michael Hudson: Thanks, Gerardo. Always a pleasure.

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