Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Mawson Gold (TSX: MAW)(OTC: MWSNF) Executive Chairman Michael Hudson on High-Grade Gold Results from Trenching & Drilling in Victoria, Australia

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, ‘Executive Chairman Mike,’ how are you?

Michael Hudson: Yeah, I've lost part of my job, Gerardo!

Gerardo Del Real: Well, let's start there. You had a release last month; you've named Ivan Fairhall as the new CEO for Mawson Gold. Before we get into the spectacular release that you had earlier today, can we talk about Ivan just a bit? And I'm looking forward to chatting with him next week and introducing him to our audience. 

Michael Hudson: Yeah, so Mawson is very much dual-focused today. We have an asset in Finland that is now a million ounces of gold equivalent, and that is looking more and more like a mining project. So we brought in Ivan's expertise. He's a mechanical engineer who's been in the mining business forever. I've known him for 10 years, and he's helped me out on mining-stage projects. 

He's the right guy to take Finland to the next stage, which is dual-focus; make it bigger, and it will get a lot bigger, but also de-risk it from an engineering and permitting point of view. So his expertise is very much suited to doing that. I will sit beside him and support him as executive chairman, and I'm very much looking forward to doing that.

In Australia, we can talk about that now. We've got some very good earlier-stage properties that we're looking to repeat that discovery success that we've made in Finland over the last three years where we've drilled out that resource to a million ounces. And we've got a tiger by the tail here in Australia. 

And we're currently going through a review that we've announced to create value from those two very different sets of assets. And obviously, one option is for us to list these assets separately in Australia, the Australian assets, and we're reviewing opportunities across different exchanges including the ASX here. 

So that's setting the company up with the appropriate expertise. I will follow the Australian assets more so. You can hear the accent, and that's my expertise, is finding things. And Ivan is most welcome. And I look forward to you chatting with Ivan and listening to his leadership and telling the story from next week onwards.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, let's talk about that expertise and the things that you are finding, sir. You just trenched 8 meters of 19.6 grams per tonne gold and 0.4% antimony 200 meters beyond the drill extensions at Sunday Creek in Australia. 

You have to be extremely excited about being able to go 200 meters away and trench 8 meters of 19.6 grams per tonne gold!

Michael Hudson: Well, absolutely! And exploration is about the unknown and creating the opportunities around the unknown with scientific theory. And sometimes it surprises you on the upside. Often it does on the downside. But this was very much a surprise on the upside. 

We took some grab samples over this area. The rocks looked pretty benign. They were fairly weathered. And those grab samples averaged 20-odd grams; those were 10 or 11 grab samples. 

And we thought, my goodness, there's something lurking below here… let's get a small machine in here. And a meter down, we channeled. And again, the rocks looked altered and that they could be mineralized. And when we saw these results come back, we were staggered at the grade! 

And it's very important because it's 200 meters from the last drill hole. And this system extends for 10 kilometers in that eastern direction. So we've stepped out. We've got a 200 meter, very high-grade trench. And then, we've got 10 kilometers to extend into. Not one drill hole. 

And we have continued drilling at Sunday Creek. You'll see more results come to the table very soon. We've done a lot of geophysics and 1,600 soil samples into that 10 kilometer extension. So you'll see this project continue to expand as we have been able to do so to-date.

Gerardo Del Real: Walk me through what the next quarter of news looks like because it looks like it's going to be extremely busy. The stock has pulled back. There's tax loss selling season; everybody's front-running that. I think at current valuations, you are one of the more compelling speculations in the entire space. But walk me through catalysts here for the next couple of quarters, Mike.

Michael Hudson: Yeah, I mean, the market is the market, and we're dealing with that as best we can. What we can control, more so, is discovery and drill rigs turning. So the plan here is to go into a big drill season in Finland from early-January. And we'll put another 20 kilometers into that project. 

We've been continually able, over the last three years, to add 300,000 to 400,000 ounces a year with those kind of drill meters. So we look to replicate that or exceed if we can, of course, that kind of discovery. And now, we're putting ounces in the ground at around US$15 an ounce. The peer group around us is valued at US$55 an ounce. So that's accretive by itself. 

But the perverse thing is that Mawson today is valued at about thirty bucks an ounce. So we're half the peer group with the market where it is. And that's taking zero value for these Australian projects.

And I already mentioned that we're looking at taking these Australian projects and giving them the value by themselves on a separate exchange listing. And that will be more articulated as we work behind the scenes with a variety of exchanges just to sort out the business plan and strategy. And then, we can articulate it more clearly.

So that's where you can see it going. In terms of on-the-ground work, drilling will not stop in Sunday Creek. We're looking at going back and drilling our Whroo project, which is one of the three of the nine historic epizonal fields we have here in Victoria. Two of those other epizonal fields are Fosterville and Costerfield. So we have our feet on the ground here with some very key projects. And they're continuing to deliver, as is Victoria, continuing to deliver, which is great. 

My fear was that the $200 million that has come into Victoria over the last two years wouldn't see enough discovery to keep the dream alive. But we've already seen Kirkland do so well with 500-meter to one-kilometer step outs. It doesn't look like the Swan zone was a one-off. Costerfield have extended their mine-life dramatically with some extremely high-grade hits.

And people see the opportunity. And this is just another one of those opportunities… who can scratch down a meter on-surface and trench 8 meters at 19 grams in many jurisdictions without a drill hole within hundreds of meters of it… it's ripe for the picking!

Gerardo Del Real: Well said! You're going to make a great executive chairman, Mike.

Michael Hudson: Thank you. I'm getting too old, aren't I?!

Gerardo Del Real: Thank you so much, Mike. Jokes aside, I'm looking forward to the consistent news flow from both Finland and Australia. It does seem like you have a tiger by the tail in Australia. And we already know that we both believe in Finland; you're going to have a multi-million ounce mine one day there. 

So congrats on all the great work and we'll chat soon!

Michael Hudson: Thanks, Gerardo.

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