Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Mawson Gold (TSX: MAW)(OTC: MWSNF) Executive Chairman Michael Hudson on Expanding Million Gold Ounce Resource & Spinout of New Australian Based Gold Company

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the Executive Chairman of Mawson Gold, Mr. Michael Hudson. Mike, great to have you back on. How are you today?

Michael Hudson: I'm very well. Lovely to be here again, talking to you, Gerardo. I've missed you.

Gerardo Del Real: Same, same. And it hasn't been for lack of news. You've been extremely busy behind the scenes. You're prioritizing targets in Finland. You've started drilling in Australia. You just announced that you plan to IPO a new ASX gold-focused company that will take the assets from Australia and spin them out. A lot to cover there. I'll let you do your usual phenomenal job of providing the context.

Michael Hudson: That's a big ask. So, let's unpack it in hemisphere first. So in the Northern hemisphere, Finland is now under the leadership of our new CEO, our outstanding leadership of Ivan Fairhall, who is a project developer. That is where that more advanced asset's heading. As you're well aware, we put out more than a million ounces gold equivalent inferred a few months ago. We've been working through just where to go with that project. We will go down the path of economic studies, a PEA, on that project within the next six to 12 months. I think that's clear. Just to demonstrate the viability or otherwise of the project into the public domain and where we're going.

But clearly the upside is to add more ounces and that's what a PEA can demonstrate there too. We can demonstrate what the NPV of the project at a PEA level look looks like today, and then the attractiveness of approach like we have there is really all around adding additional ounces, increasing the throughput, and that can come through exploration. So rather than having exploration valued on a per ounce basis, you can start to do it a little bit more in a sophisticated way. So, that is where we're going in one stage.

Now, the other stage is we know we've searched about 5% of our project there. So the easier way to get ounces is to find new near-surface ounces. So we've worked very hard over the last three years to build that million-ounce resource. We're stepping back a bit and now starting to articulate the bigger picture opportunity.

So I don't think we'll go through a resource upgrade again this winter. More so, we'll demonstrate that this project can go to one to two to three to four by bringing in further exploration opportunities. That's the vision, really, where we'll have more of a focus, not a sole focus, on the project.

So you can see it's a balance between demonstrating a future mining project, but demonstrating just how big that project can be also. So that's why you've seen large-scale, bolder discoveries, large-scale artificial intelligence studies that support exploration into the 95% of the area that we haven't looked at. That's the Finland side, and that's under the leadership of Ivan. He's going to be busy with a big drill program coming up, a 15-kilometer drill program coming up this winter in Finland, which will start in January. Any question around that, sorry, before we go on?

Gerardo Del Real: I actually just have a comment. If that is all that you were doing, that would be enough to justify a market cap at multiples of today's market cap. We know with tax-loss selling season, there's been a pretty prolonged consolidation in the gold space and tax-loss selling certainly hasn't helped. But to anyone that's listening, that's looking for a quality, quality, quality deposit that will be millions of ounces of gold, that I believe will become a mine one day, excellent entry point or excellent double-down point. I don't usually say that on this platform, but this is as close to a no-brainer out there.

Again, if Finland was all that we were speculating on, let's go to the other part of the hemisphere and talk Australia a bit, Mike.

Michael Hudson: Well, over the last 18 months in Australia, since we've acquired those projects, we've put 10 kilometers of drilling, lots of geophysics, unpacking, de-risking and looking for the first time, actually, in the shadow of the head frame of two of the highest-grade gold mines on earth in a jurisdiction that's produced 80 million ounces, but really hasn't been looked at for 100 years.

So we have Fosterville's the highest-grade gold mine on earth. We have Costerfield owned by Mandalay Resources, which is the sixth highest-grade gold mine on earth, within 100 kilometers of me here actually, where I'm standing today. Then the exploration around those areas has been completely underdone. It's just a forgotten gold field for lots of reasons we don't have time to go to today, but it's certainly attracted hundreds of millions of dollars of capital in the last few years, including our shareholder capital, which we are now sitting on one of the best gold discoveries, outside those existing mines, in a project called Sunday Creek that we've continually been able to drill and expand.

We put out something like 20-plus meters at more than five grams a week or two ago at the deepest toll on the project. It's been drilled out over 800 meters. We look like we can extend into 10-plus kilometers of anomalism. It's going to get a lot bigger too.

So we are standing proud there with a very good discovery. So it's obviously got slightly a different focus in jurisdiction and not as advanced as Finland. We are in our backyard here in Australia, where we believe that investors will value those assets on a standalone basis in a standalone company, much better than having them in Mawson.

So you'll see, we've just put out an announcement. Our plan is to IPO our Australian assets onto the ASX. That should, we'd expect, give them full opportunity to be valued at the peer evaluations that we see as good or better than Mawson alone today. So that's the plan. It will have its own separate management. I'll lead that company. Ivan will lead the TSX Finnish company, and we'll be off to the races with a new Victorian-focused gold company.

Gerardo Del Real: I am looking forward to progress from all the projects, not just Finland, but the very, very, very attractive portfolio of Australian assets. I know that Ivan is very methodical. I know that his expertise is the perfect fit for advancing and growing the project in Finland. But I also know that what you do best is discover million-ounce deposits and make those bigger. I'm looking forward to the results from Australia. That, like you said, is looking like one of the best recent discoveries out of that part of the world.

Mike, thorough update. I'm looking forward to details on the IPO once you get exchange approval. Anything else to add to that?

Michael Hudson: No, no, just all hands on deck, lots of discovery happening, and more to do, and lots of big drill programs coming up over the next quarter or two.

Gerardo Del Real: Looking forward to results. Thank you again for your time and the update.

Michael Hudson: Thanks, Gerardo.

Gerardo Del Real: Chat soon.

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