Categories: Base Metals / Precious Metals
Topics: General Base Metals / General Precious Metals

Sterling Metals (TSX-V: SAG)(OTCQB: SAGGF) CEO Mathew Wilson on Vectoring in On High-Grade at Sail Pond

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the CEO of Sterling Metals, Mr. Mat Wilson. Mat, it's great to have you back on. How are you today?

Mat Wilson: I'm great, Gerardo. Your positivity is infectious, and so I'm glad I have good things to talk about.

Gerardo Del Real: Let's talk about those good things. You just announced the results of the 2022 Regional Drilling and the Orion 3D Geophysical Survey at Sail Pond, which I know the company and the team was eagerly expecting. Let's get into the details of it. I would love for you to provide the context.

Mat Wilson: I think that context is really important on this. We spent the last couple of years taking this thing from nothing, basically, not moose pasture because it's in the forest, but something that's never been drilled before, never been tested, never been touched, to a point where we can constantly attack something and hopefully find something that is a pretty significant discovery. We have this Heimdall Zone, out at this 14 kilometer trend at Sail Pond. We have the Heimdall zone in this North Extension Zone that's a kilometer footprint of all of these really high grade, but really narrow veins, but they're just everywhere. The thought process is that they have to be coming from somewhere. Veins like this don't just appear, right? And grades like that don't just appear, and especially when the grades have multiple styles. There's these quartz veins that carry massive sulfides, and then there's this a hundred percent sulfosalt replacement of the host rock that's there.

You have this different kind of really high grade veining. Again, all narrow, but across this one kilometer. We undertook this thesis, basically, that was like, well, sulfides are chargeable. Let's go find the best tool to figure out how to identify where a pool of sulfides, or as I've been saying for a couple of years, a pod of sulfides would be so that you don't have to chase these narrow and kind of hide and seek veins going down. This Orion Survey, is a result of that, the team was out there and minus 35 and 10 feet of snow and cutting lines, it was great. They did an awesome job.

From that, it was amazing, right? It's really hard work what they did, but they got it all done. You were hoping that there would be this beacon of chargeability light, let's call it, that would be the source, the plumbing that made sense in the structure. It would be somewhere underneath the Heimdall Zone, right? Or under that extension zone. What we put out in that Orion Survey is that one main big target there is just a huge anomaly that is right where you would want it to be. Within this high resistivity, we're showing you that you're in the right rock. It's not argillite because in the resistivity it shows that it's not. The thought process is that that's that pearl, that's that big pod of sulfides that's feeding this kilometer of these high grade veins, and they kind of just broke up and cracked a bunch as they went up to surface.

It's kind of in the right depth range, like 250, 300 down to about 500, and it goes for a while. The hypothesis is, that is really exciting for us because we think that that's where it all came from. And what is the day today? Where are we? We're on May 24 weekend here in Canada, so not the 24th yet, but we're going to start drilling in a couple of weeks at that target. Three years of work to get to this point. We're really excited to see what comes of it.

Gerardo Del Real: It sounds to me, Mat, and correct me if I'm wrong, you feel the drilling to date has kind of vectored in towards the main pods as you like to call them, and I got to imagine you're chomping at the bit to get that drill bit turning if you do believe that you're vectoring in to better grades and where the pods of this mineralized system are.

Mat Wilson: Yeah, that's the thing. We spent... That regional drilling we put in, I mean, you got to get a little bit lucky when you get into a drilling in the first pass. We got lucky with Heimdall. We had these multiple theories we were testing when Covid was on. We hadn't even gotten to site. The first 16 holes or 6,000 meters or something of the program were kind of blind and didn't really do that great. Then all of a sudden we started turning the rig and that's when we discovered Heimdall. But you got to get a little bit lucky. The regional drilling, we see these broken and fractured high grades, so they're still there, but it hasn't... Didn't really hang together like Heimdall did. We think that it's dipping, there's different geology. We're going to figure that out.

I think that what we need is that... What we're seeing is that the geophysics, hopefully, will show this model. We're going to do a big airborne survey as soon as that works out, because I just think that it's deeper up in the north. Because those results show the grade and the mineralogy is there but, obviously, they're very narrow and didn't really hold together and that was too bad. You still have this kilometer footprint and then you know that it goes for 14 kilometers. I think just the drilling didn't really hit what we wanted to hit in the north, but that's okay because we know that it's still there. I think that you need some deeper geophysics up there to really find those pods up there. Hopefully, the idea is we show that this is just an awesome first spot to be. Then you can rinse, wash, repeat, and then do the geophysics you need up in the north.

Gerardo Del Real: Let's talk treasury. How's that looking?

Mat Wilson: We just closed a six and a half million dollar deal at 15 cents. It was 80% institutionally bought. Really good money, long-term people. And stock, disappointing the way the stock's trading. I really would've thought that the stock would've boosted knowing drilling was coming, but short-term we got to deliver on some results. I'm not too worried about it other than tempting to start buying it again. But I put a big check into that 15 cent round. We just have just under $8 million in cash in the bank, so we have lots of money to drill Sail Pond and then to really attack Adeline in our district.

Gerardo Del Real: Fantastic. Mat, excited for the second half of this year, both on the macro side with precious metals taking off, and I think copper's going to start rebounding here soon as well. Excited for Sterling with the drill bit turning. Anything to add to that?

Mat Wilson: No, I think I'm excited as well. I'm hoping that metals markets kind of pick up a little bit coming out of the summer. I think we should have, I'm really excited to see what we can pull out this year because we've obviously been at this for a little while and it should be fun. I'm hoping it's a fun time with a lot of good news for everyone.

Gerardo Del Real: Appreciate your time, as always. Let's do it again soon.

Mat Wilson: Gerardo. Thanks so much, man. Talk to you soon.

Gerardo Del Real: All right, chat soon. Bye now.