Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Mawson Gold (TSX: MAW)(OTC: MWSNF) CEO Ivan Fairhall on Unlocking Value from Diverse Mawson Portfolio

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the CEO of Mawson Gold, Mr. Ivan Fairhall. Ivan, you and I had a chance to connect at Beaver Creek. It was a busy conference. I know that Mawson was well received. How are you today?

Ivan Fairhall: I am very well, Gerardo. Great to be on the phone and following our meeting in Beaver Creek, which was just very nice.

Gerardo Del Real: I imagine you've been on the phone a lot today, being that Southern Cross Gold, which of course Mawson owns 60% of, just drilled 21.5 meters of 15 grams per tonne gold equivalent. This was in a 350 meter step out at the Sunday Creek Project in Victoria, Australia. Congratulations to them. By way of Mawson's ownership stake, congratulations to you. Not a coincidence, I don't think, that both companies' share price surged on the back of those results and just spectacular, spectacular numbers. I'd love to get your take on it, Ivan.

Ivan Fairhall: Yeah, look, I've always said Southern Cross' success is Mawson's success. Having them deliver grades like this and Mawson owning such a big piece of that business is great for Mawson shareholders who are benefiting from exploration success on multiple projects. And obviously while we're working on our own projects, we've got those guys down there in Australia doing excellent work. The highest grade hit on the project, 2.1 meters at 121 grams a tonne gold equivalent. And that's in that broader 21 meters at half an ounce, 15 grams a tonne. So that's very, very impressive. The really exciting thing here is that it's a step out. So most of the previous results are fantastic results, like 119 meters at 3.9 grams a tonne gold equivalent, and many more, they were focused on the Apollo mining area where clearly there's a very nice, coherent, high grade shoot. There's lots of holes in that and I don't think anyone would question that, that is hanging together very nicely.

But this result here is at a shoot called the Rising Sun, which is 350 meters to the west. And I think this emphasizes the real scale of the opportunity in Sunday Creek. And you've got this host dyke that runs east west, and they know that there's northwest high grade structures and that's where the high grade form into a shoot. Apollo's obviously one of those, getting better at depth and no one knows where it finishes. But Rising Sun, where this hole is, that's another one. And there's a couple of good holes in that, great holes in that now, and that's starting to hang together. And so that's why I think this is most exciting is because you've got shoots like Apollo that are holding together really well and then you've got a compounding effect by finding new shoots at the same time as you're extending the same shoots that you've discovered down to depth. And yeah, it's pretty exciting times for them. And obviously also because of our large ownership position, very, very good news for Mawson shareholders.

Gerardo Del Real: Try to provide some context as to this scale. Correct me if I'm wrong, I believe you're drilling with two rigs at three locations. We have Apollo, Rising Sun and the Golden Dyke at the Sunday Creek project. But I look at the map here and I'm looking at Rising Sun, it's 400 meters to the west of Apollo. I look at Golden Dyke, that's 700 meters west of Apollo. And so, when we're thinking scale here and potential for tonnage, and clearly the grade is there, what do you see thus far? What do you infer thus far?

Ivan Fairhall: Well, the frequency of these shoots I think is still not really appreciated. The old timers, when they mined underground, they mined the very, very narrow, very, very super high grade ounces type scale. And they mined something like 20 in a space of 200 meters. Now, I think the shoots that you're going to target in a modern mining context are going to be wider. So less frequent, but still, you look at the drilling that's happened across that basically one kilometer strike length that you refer to those three main areas that are being explored, and there's a lot of sparsely spaced drill holes that all seem to hit high grade shoots. So as Mike often says, they're either really lucky or really smart, that they seem to be able to hit high grades. And so I don't think anyone really fully appreciates how many high grade shoots there are. But the more drill holes, the more shoots you can identify, the deeper you can chase them down, that's when you really get compounding of scale here.

Gerardo Del Real: Well said. This again is from Southern Cross Gold, which Mawson, as I mentioned earlier, own 60% of, let's talk Mawson because you have a pivotal month coming up here in October, and frankly a pivotal fourth quarter. You have an upcoming PEA and then you have exploration programs in both Finland and Sweden. How are those coming along?

Ivan Fairhall: Yeah, well, the PEA really is a very important milestone for the company and it is in its final stages, going to be out in the next couple of weeks. And I'm really happy how it's coming together. And I do think that it's really going to help people understand what we've got in there in Finland, in that resource, with the mineability, the favorable metallurgy and all of those things. All of what that stuff means for the cost of production, and just the Finland location. It's great infrastructure, low taxes, and you got to put all of those things together and you'll understand that it's a great place to be developing a mine. And Rajapalot is already a great project that we know is going to get bigger through exploration.

And like you said, we are out there in the field now collecting hundreds and hundreds of samples to do a very large geochemical program to help target more drilling, to find more deposits. And then at the same time, we're planning drill work to extend the deposits that we've already found down depth because they're open and really just require more drilling to make them larger.

So multiple ways to increase the scale of that project to really supercharge what is going to be a great project that we've already found. And drill results to come out of Sweden and exploration down there. And we've got Southern Cross being the icing on the cake. So lots of potential and that really creates lots of potential funding and corporate finance optionality to Mawson as we move all of those projects forward.

Gerardo Del Real: Looking forward to what I believe is going to be several conversations here shortly. Ivan, always a pleasure. Great catching up. Can't wait to see that PEA you always talk about, and Mike always talks about, that this project as a mine, that is growing and I am really excited for everyone, including myself, to get a better snapshot of all of the positive attributes that lead you and Mike and myself, though I'm less qualified, to believe that this will one day be a very profitable mine. Anything to add to that, Ivan?

Ivan Fairhall: No, I think you're right. I think you've hit it there. There's lots of news to come and I'm really excited like you are to hear it, to be able to explain that there's a lot of work that's gone into it and just really pleased to be able to explain, have a format to actually write some of those things down and get that information out there because I think that's going to be really important to people to understand the opportunity that we've got here.

Gerardo Del Real: Looking forward to it. Thanks again, Ivan.

Ivan Fairhall: Thanks a lot, Gerardo.

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