Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Palamina Corp. (TSX-V: PA)(OTC: PLMNF) CEO Andrew Thomson on Drill Results, Multiple Drill Programs & Upcoming Catalysts

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the president and CEO of Palamina Corp., Mr. Andrew Thomson. Andrew, happy new year to you. I'm saying it till the end of the month. How have you been?

Andrew Thomson: Very good, thanks. We had a little bout of COVID in our house, which I think everybody can attest to. But outside of that, I feel like a lucky guy because I'm in Canada and everything's kosher.

Gerardo Del Real: I hope everyone's well. I hope everyone's recovered. And I think when it's all said and done, I think as COVID is going to be one of those things that humanity shares in common. And hopefully, we become more forward moving in that aspect and healthier. But listen, you had some drill results from the maiden drill program at the Usicayos gold project. Provide the context there. The market, I kind of looked at it, kind of shrugged. There were some positive aspects to the drill results. It was only four holes, and again, on a maiden drill program. So I just wanted to have you on to provide the context.

And then the one thing that you've done brilliantly during what's essentially been a year and a half consolidation in the precious metals space, is you've been able to add not just one, not just two, but I believe it's four district scale gold projects, and correct me if I'm wrong about that number. And so I want to talk a bit about some of those other projects and what activity to expect in 2022. But let's start with the drill results, your take on those.

Andrew Thomson: Yeah, I think on a really major basis, again, we're focused on the Puno Orogenic Belt where there's a lot of, there's very little drilling that's been carried out, and we've been delayed by permitting. And we're finally permitted, and we drilled the Veta Zone where we had six drill holes planned. We were only able to complete four of those and we tested over 600 meters strike length. So we still have two holes on the Northeast end that are under review right now.

We did hit visible gold, and we did have a 24 meter intercept of a half gram, but we did not achieve our goal of hitting a high grade intercept. So that was really the disappointment that the markets, is being reflected in the market now. But we are permitted, and we can continue drilling. And to that effect, we've kept the drill at site. We are hampered by the rainy season right now. And so I think part of our share price decrease is that people want stories providing a lot of news.

In terms of the project itself, there's another zone called Cayos, that again, we're just permitting that area to drill, and I'm hoping to have it permitted for June. We'll likely do one hole minimum in the Veta Zone. We believe there's a Northeast plunge and that we're calling it a bit of a halo effect. We're drilling underneath it. The holes we drilled were quite deep due to topography. We had to sort of step up higher on the hill and drill at a different azimuth where we were drilling deeper, so we think there may be a Northeast plunge to it. We're just reviewing it now, but on hole number five, we can't actually move that hole closer to test near a surface for the Northeast plunge. So that's where we're at with the Veta Zone.

And then the Cayos Zone to the Southwest is one of three other zones to the Southwest, which again, the thickness and the width of those is much greater. So again, we had three meters of 30 grams and it's a wider zone. And candidly, if we had our druthers, we'd have probably drilled there first, just because of the width of the zone itself. But again Veta needed to be tested regardless. And again, I am relatively disappointed with the results, but again, it's not... I believe very strongly in the project in this belt. And to that end, as you say, we've got a fairly large property position, including, of course, our equity investment in Winshear, where they're permitting the Gaban project for drilling.

Gerardo Del Real: We're entering what I believe is going to be a stellar 2022 for the precious metals price. We haven't had that in quite some time. We have established a pretty good floor here at basically $1,800 gold and $24, $23 silver. What happens between now and late April, when you hope to be able to resume drilling?

Andrew Thomson: So again, we have a project called Lagos, which is our silver copper project. We don't say too much about it, but in the rainy season, we tend to work that property. We've had one offer on it. We ran a quick IP survey to see if gradient or pole-dipole would work better. We got a pretty good response with pole-dipole. In that project, we also ran a trenching program. We're going to put results out on that fairly shortly. We've gotten the assays back, but we're going to bring that project forward. It's got much better infrastructure, and it's not restricted. The permitting there is quite simple because there isn't a big community presence. And so that will be permitted by May, so we're actually moving forward on that pretty quickly.

At Usicayos we're going back to surface and doing more measurements to sort of prove out this Northeast trending or the Veta Northeast Plunge. We want to just see if it's worthwhile to drill the fifth hole, or we'll move the drill to the Cayos Zone. But at Lagos, the idea, behind it right now is just to get it to the drill ready stage. And so we're actually starting to do a fair amount of trenching there, and we'll probably announce an IP program starting in February. I mean, that's what we're aiming for. We've signed it up and, I want to put out the results from the trenching first.

Gerardo Del Real: Looking forward to those results. I encourage everyone to go to Palamina's website, which is palamina.com, some excellent pictures on the multiple projects, multiple districts that you've been able to put together. And I think you're entering the right market for having that type of land package in a very, very prospective and under-explored belt. Anything to add to that, Andrew?

Andrew Thomson: No, not really. I think the only thing really in terms of catalysts is that Winshear raised $750,000 in the last quarter, we're looking to raise more money once the permitting is in place. But we are ready to go in terms of drilling the Gaban project. We also have the arbitration in Tanzania. We're going to see a resolution to that in February of 2023 in terms of a judgment, so that's coming up. It's coming up actually pretty quickly. So those are the other catalysts beyond even joint venturing some of our other properties within Palamina. So I think we're very adequately priced in the market right now.

Gerardo Del Real: Well said. Thanks for coming on. And we shall talk soon. It sounds like there's plenty of activity despite the lull in drilling action. It sounds like there's a lot to do between now and April.

Andrew Thomson: Yeah, absolutely.

Gerardo Del Real: Wonderful.

Andrew Thomson: Okay. Thanks very much.

Gerardo Del Real: Thank you, Andrew.