Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Mawson Gold (TSX: MAW)(OTC: MWSNF) Executive Chairman Michael Hudson on Mawson's Subsidiary SXG Drilling 404 m @ 5.1 g/t Gold with Visible Gold Assays Pending

 

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, first and foremost, how are you today, sir?

Michael Hudson: I'm very well. It’s a pleasure to speak to you.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, let's get right into it. Look, we often use the words, bonanza grade and game changing holes and phrases that oftentimes are not as accurate as we use them. It's easy to get excited when the drills are turning and then you hit something of significance. But holy smokes, heck of a way to start a September. Mawson Gold subsidiary, SXG, just drilled 404 meters at 5.1 grams per tonne gold. That included 13 high grade veins intersections. There were seven intersections over a hundred grams per tonne gold, up to 2,670 grams per tonne gold. There's assays pending, and this was on a hundred meter step out hole, so that's also got visible gold, the hundred meter step out hole, obviously the one that's pending there. But just absolutely phenomenal numbers. Even in this quiet, soft market, the market really, really reacted well to it. Congratulations. I wanted to get you on, not just to congratulate you, but to get the context on this.

Michael Hudson: Thanks, Gerardo. No, you've summarized it pretty well. They're the metrics. That was three times better than any prior hole on this project, and we've been knocking it out of the park on this project. It's a world leading hit rate over the last year to 18 months that has been coming out of this project and to triple the previous best hole, and individually this hole had three of the top 10 intersections within that 400 meters, in the top 10 for this deposit. So it's a leading result in a leading project, and it's just one of those holes.

The context is that it was a step out, a 25 to 60 meter step out from our prior best hole, and we drilled it to demonstrate two things. One, to target the high grades that we got in that previous best hole, which is hole 50. And we have pivoted to targeting the best parts of this system because it's a lazy person's way to build ounces. So we were drilling in areas where we'd seen previous good results and we have four rigs spinning with that philosophy at the moment, but secondly also to create a larger volume. So this was the only hole that has stepped out from that prior hole, and it creates very good volume and continuity beyond that previous good hole. So we were seeing continuity across these 13 structures, over this 400 meter length.

So the context is very good. It de-risks the project. It makes it bigger, and as you stated, there's a hundred meter step out from 77 that is in the lab at the moment, but has a similar number of visible gold hits a hundred meters below. Now, we’re cautious on the visible gold because it can inspire on the upside, but equally, until the assays come in, we don't know what we've got there, so we'll see. But the system is incredible and it's open everywhere. It's only very, very early days.

Gerardo Del Real: You mentioned the four rigs. There's four diamond drill rigs operating. The plan is to drill an additional 26,000 meters by April of next year. You've drilled nearly 20,000 meters so far this year, and you made it pretty clear in the news release that SXG's plan is to demonstrate volume, scale and grade. Can you go into that a bit more?

Michael Hudson: Well, absolutely. I've just spoken to the grade and that we're targeting the higher grade parts of the system, which is Rising Sun and Apollo, notwithstanding that we've got some very good grades along a 10 kilometer scale system. We've drilled about one kilometer so far, but we're really narrowing down in that one kilometer, the higher grade parts, as I said, to build ounces quicker. It's the lazy person's way, was the reference I was making there before. The volume is that it's really underdone. We're not going here to infill. We're still stepping out, but stepping out around the best grades.

And then the third part of the strategy is to demonstrate the district scale of this project. So we're not just talking about a kilometer long system, drill down to a kilometer pretty much that we already have, but we have a 10 kilometer trend. We've got a dozen holes that are just coming out of the lab very soon that have been the first ever holes to drill along that other nine kilometers that had the similar geology, old mines, and never drilled holes. So stay tuned for that news. But it's a very clear strategy that we have enunciated and are following, and every one of these holes fits into that strategy.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, it's going to be an exciting fall. It's going to be an exciting winter. There's obviously other core assets in the Mawson portfolio. I want to go ahead and talk about those on a different occasion because it's not often that you get these types of numbers with pending assays that already are showing visible gold on aggressive step out. So I think that's a great place to leave the conversation.

I want to encourage everybody to touch base with Mike and the Mawson team next week. I know you'll be at Beaver Creek, as will I. Looking forward to catching up in person, and once again, I'll end this conversation the way I started it. Congratulations to you, the Mawson team and the team at SXG. Anything to add to that?

Michael Hudson: Not at all. Look forward to seeing you next week and keep your eye. There's always news flow coming from Southern Cross and into Mawson subsequently.

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

Michael Hudson: Take care.

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