Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Mawson Gold (TSX-V: MAW)(OTC: MWSNF) CEO Michael Hudson on More Spectacular Drill Results at Sunday Creek

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the CEO and executive chairman of Mawson Gold, Mr. Michael Hudson. Michael, how are you today?

Michael Hudson: I'm very well, thanks, Gerardo. A bit of morning voice there, down under here. Thanks for having me again.

Gerardo Del Real: Well listen, down under is delivering. Southern Cross Gold, of course, you're 51% owned subsidiary and soon to be part of a merger and we'll touch on that here in just a bit. But just delivered 124.8 grams per tonne gold over 3.6 meters in an 80-meter step-out. Let me re-say that. 124.8 grams per tonne gold over 3.6 meters in an 80-meter down-dip step-out. Absolutely phenomenal. It was far from one hit. Phenomenal results top to bottom. I'll let you provide the context, sir.

Michael Hudson: Well, this is one hole that was released by Southern Cross down on the 100% owned Sunday Creek Project hole 118, Gerardo, and it's a bit numbing, the kind of results that this project keeps delivering. I suppose you've given a little bit of color around that hole, but it was mineralized from 450 meters downhole down to 1,180 meters. So an 800-meter intersection from top to bottom. It had two of the top 10 hits in the project. It hit that intersection you spoke about, which was 80 meters below anything else we'd ever hit in the deposit. So around about 1.05 kilometers, let's go with that. So the system's continuing at depth. These systems get better at depth and that's the tantalizing thing is that we're just seeing these extremely high grades becoming more and more common as we go deeper. So the tantalizing prospect is that we just might not be in the best part of this system just yet, but it had a number of other high grade intersections including 0.7 at 604, half a kilometer away from that intersection that we just spoke about, for example.

So it's knocked it out of the park in just the highlight intersections. But the key points for us are that it shows continuity of the hole. So we're testing the continuity of the rungs of the ladder, which are the veins that host the gold, and there's multiple rungs down this ladder, if you like. And we hit them all where predicted and the grade's stacking up and we put examples of that in the press release and then just to see the tenor of the grade and then how it's extending down at depth deeper than ever before are the key messages.

Gerardo Del Real: What comes next? Obviously I'm biased, I’ve followed the company and the project for quite some time. I could tell everybody what comes next is probably more blockbuster results. And the fact that you think you're just getting to the better part of the system is, again, it can't help but make you excited and giddy, but what do you expect next from this project?

Michael Hudson: Yeah, so the hit rate has been phenomenal. I don't think there's anything better in terms of a hundred gram meter intersections or above divided by the amount of drilling that we're doing. So we're hitting about every thousand meters, we're hitting a hundred gram meter hit, which puts it right at the top of the tree in terms of global discoveries and hit rates. That's important because where it's going is... Let's hope it continues is the simple point, but there's very good reason to hope for that. We put out an exploration target based on about 40 kilometers of drilling earlier this year, and that stayed at 1 to 1.6 million ounces at 7 to 10 grams gold equivalent. That was in about a third of the area that we are drilling, with hits above us and outside that exploration target already at the time. We've extended that now since we put that out. We've got old mines along say a kilometer trend and that exploration target's only a third of that trend.

If the trend continues, and that's where we're drilling now. We've got a 60-kilometer program, so we're going to more than double the meters. We've got four rigs today, going to five and six by September. We'll more than double the meters in this project over the next year, and if it continues where those hits and old mines are above us and continues to develop like it has where we've drilled in the other two-thirds of the area, then we think we're on our way, in terms of our aim to 3 million ounces at 10 grams. And that would put us into absolutely top-tier global territory in terms of inventory of gold in the ground at that extremely high grade. And then that one kilometer is only 10% of the entire trend, which exceeds 10 kilometers. So really we're only 3% of our way into the discovery and so much more to come.

Gerardo Del Real: I absolutely can't wait. I believe there's 10 holes that are being processed, is that correct?

Michael Hudson: Yeah. So I was giving you the next year, but if you want to know the next month, there's 10 holes. There's always news flow with four rigs and soon to be five and one of the most exciting gold discoveries on Earth just continuing to deliver, and we're starting to drill out into those... Well, actually the focus is twofold. To extend out into those areas that I was just talking about, but also to focus on the grade. And we've got downhole NAVI drilling, which is a navigational downhole drill driven by water, high water pressures, and we can become very precise where we want to put that. So we have a parent hole and we deviate off like spider's legs down under the ground, and we're targeting some very high-grade areas where we've hit plus 500 gram hits and they're separated by 20 meters. And if we can start to infill that and drill that out, those very high grade areas, then that's the way to fame and glory in this project, also, to build ounces very quickly at extremely high grade. So we'll focus on grade and volume.

Gerardo Del Real: Now, listen, I know early in the Sunday Creek days, there were analogs that were often brought up in regards to the geology and the model type. I know at times there was some pushback on the frequency of the analog that was referenced and now you are the analog and Sunday Creek is the analog. So congratulations on that. Absolutely excellent work, sir. Now the analog is hardly ever mentioned, right? I find it interesting how these things evolved. Heck of a job. Congrats to you, the Southern Cross team, the team at Mawson, and excited for the rest of the year.

Michael Hudson: Thanks, Gerardo. And we've got a lot happening corporately. We're going to simplify the ownership of this asset and not have it in two separate companies, and it will be dual-listed, which will bring a hell of a lot more eyes on the company, and that's going to play out over the next three or four months, also. So lots of catalysts, both technically and corporately, to be very excited about.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent, excellent. Looking forward to it. Thank you, sir.

Michael Hudson: Thanks, Gerardo.

Gerardo Del Real: Cheers.

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