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Q2 Metals (TSX-V: QTWO)(OTC: QUEXF) VP Exploration Neil McCallum on Delivering Grade and Scale at the Flagship Cisco Lithium Project in Quebec’s Prolific James Bay Region
Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the VP of Exploration for Q2 Metals — Mr. Neil McCallum. Neil, it’s great to have you back on. How are you today?
Neil McCallum: I’m doing well, Gerardo. It's a great day with lots of conversations with a lot of folks discussing the news we just put out. I’m happy to expand on that today.
Gerardo Del Real: Well, let's get right into it. You just published an interval of 215.6 meters at 1.69% lithium, including a 64.6-meter interval at 2.29% lithium at the Cisco project. You have grade, you clearly have scale, and you clearly have continuity.
Can you provide some context on Hole 18? Then, can you provide some context on how Holes 18, 11 and 13 all hold up together in regard to where they were drilled?
Neil McCallum: Yes, and it’s important to explain that our understanding of the project evolves with every drill hole because we don't have a lot of surface exposure… and especially for holes, such as Hole 21, where there's virtually no outcrop above where we drilled.
Our understanding is changing, and our understanding of the orientation of the pegmatite is changing quite a bit too. Originally, we were thinking east-west trending because that's what it looked like at surface. But now, we're seeing more of a north-south trend. And that's taking us from Holes 10 and 11 down through 21 and 18. And that’s where we're seeing those larger, wider intervals.
Worth mentioning, Hole 21 has a continuous pegmatite interval of 347 meters… so that one is waiting to be reported on in terms of assays. We don't have those back yet. We’re looking forward to getting those out to market because that's really going to bolster the story in terms of these wider, larger intervals.
Gerardo Del Real: You mentioned the evolving nature of your understanding of Cisco. Where does it stand now from what you've seen in the core? Then, I want to talk about the upcoming winter drill program and the potential for a first resource estimate.
Neil McCallum: That's a very good question. At this stage, it's too early to say when we're going to put out a resource estimate. We have a lot of work ahead of us. Keep in mind, we only started working on this project in June of this year so it's early days. In terms of that, we're going to need to do some infill drilling in order to do a resource estimate.
We've thought about an exploration target, which we can do with very little information. But the confidence is very low on that. So we don't really want to put something out where it's just hand-waving at this point.
So far, we’ve only drilled roughly a quarter or less of the entire surface area of what we've seen. That's an important piece. People have arm-waved on their own in terms of putting sort of back-of-the-envelope potential resources out there. Yet, keep in mind, we're only getting started, and it's going to be a very busy winter.
We're going to be as aggressive as we can in terms of getting out there and expanding things as we gain an understanding of where this is going and how many more large intervals we can get along strike. There’s potential for parallel zones as this is a large area. As I mentioned, only about a quarter of what we see at surface has been explored at depth… so there's a lot of work to do.
Gerardo Del Real: I’ve got to tell you, Neil, the potential for parallel zones, given the fact that a lot of this is undercover, excites the heck out of me. I mean, it has to excite you and the team. What does a winter drill program look like?
Neil McCallum: Yes, right now, we're looking at two drill rigs at a minimum. Winter road access should get us onto the property late January, early February. And we'll be going right up until the end of April. So that’s going to be quite a few solid months of turning the drills and getting core and hopefully finding some more significant intervals.
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Gerardo Del Real: There was a question on one of the chat boards asking why Hole 17 assays are still pending and why it was resubmitted for testing. Can you speak to that a bit?
Neil McCallum: Yes, that was essentially straightforward laboratory stuff where they need to ensure they’re reporting things that pass standards. Whenever they're doing their work, and whenever we're reviewing results, we're comparing those against whether it's standard reference materials that are inserted or blanks or duplicates.
I'm not sure exactly what didn't pass in the lab but they're making sure they are reporting high-quality results — so that's fine. We'll just put that out when we get it… perhaps with the next batch of results or maybe it'll be standalone. We'll wait and see when that comes in.
Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Back to Hole 21. When we talk about 347.1 meters of continuous spodumene pegmatite and the consistency of the grade thus far, in the last interview you and I did, we talked about how I anticipated pretty similar grades because of the way it's holding up really, really well.
Well, let me ask you a better question. Is all of the core looking pretty similar to you when you're pulling this stuff out?
Neil McCallum: Yes, exactly. It is looking very similar, especially in these larger, wider intervals. One of the great things this project has is those larger intervals. For example, Hole 18 is higher grade than many of those narrower 5 to 20 or 30-meter intervals. So we're quite happy to see that the grade is remaining high for those larger intervals.
That's going to help us when putting resources together. The obvious target will be to follow those large intervals. Of course, those 30-meter intervals on any other project would be great drill intercepts. But for us, that's more of a side thought at the moment.
Gerardo Del Real: It's funny, I remember having similar conversations early on with Patriot Battery Metals. Where most lithium companies would be thrilled to have 30 and 40-meter intervals, with Cisco and with early Patriot, those 30 and 40-meter intervals barely even get talked about.
Neil McCallum: Yep, exactly.
Gerardo Del Real: Speak to me about the metallurgical observations thus far. I'm aware that there hasn't been a lot of work done in that area just yet. But with the size of the crystals and the way that the spodumene is looking, can you make any interpretations in regard to that?
Neil McCallum: Sure, while still preliminary as we haven't done all of the work that’s needed, looking at the core, we've published close-ups of a few intervals showing the spodumene crystals. They're not one and a half meters like some projects — but that's fine. They are quite large.
And they’re large enough to potentially be amenable to low-cost processing. We're going to be verifying that. The work we’ve done thus far shows that the core is predominantly spodumene… so that's a positive sign for us.
Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Neil, everyone’s anticipating assays. I’m looking forward to having you back on hopefully in the next week or two. Anything to add to that?
Neil McCallum: Sure, as I said, we'll be getting the results out as soon as we can, and it's going to be a very busy October, November.
Gerardo Del Real: Good stuff. Thanks for making time, Neil. Appreciate it as always.
Neil McCallum: Absolutely. Thank you, Gerardo.
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