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

Surge Copper (TSX-V: SURG)(OTC: SRGXF) CEO Leif Nilsson on Long Runs of Copper-Gold Mineralization at Flagship Ootsa Project in Central British Columbia, Canada

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the CEO of Surge Copper — Mr. Leif Nilsson. Leif, congrats! Heck of a day in the market. Excellent results! Good to have you on. How are you?

Leif Nilsson: Yeah, I'm doing well. Thanks for having me on again, Gerardo. It's good to connect again.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, let's get right into it. It's a splashy headline but technically there's a lot of context that I think is important in this release. So let me read that splashy headline that got the market excited. It reads: 

Surge Copper intersects 830 meters of 0.38% CuEq and 378 meters of 0.40% CuEq at West Seel. 

I'd love the context because I think, oftentimes, with these releases, people look at the headline number but don't understand the further implications that some of these step outs and some of the higher grade zones provide for you.

Leif Nilsson: Sure. So let me just step back and give a bit of context around the program as a whole; what we're trying to achieve and how it fits into the bigger picture at West Seel. 

So the program this year is around 20,000 meters. The total size of the drill hole database at the Seel deposit that goes into the resources there is around 125,000 meters. So this is a pretty significant investment that we're doing this year; around a sixth of the overall investment over the years. And in-turn, the release that we put out today is 8 holes. So it's about a third of the total program. 

So it was definitely a very material release for us today in terms of the overall scale of the results. And, as you say, there's always context and details in terms of where the holes are located and how that fits into the objectives that we're trying to reach.

So, really, what this program was about this year is all about resource expansion at West Seel. So that's the biggest deposit we have at the Ootsa property. It’s around a 1.1 billion lb copper and 1 million-plus oz gold total resource inventory. And the program is really focused on stepping out around the margins of the deposit; putting a few holes across the top… all with the objective of, hopefully, adding some good tonnes / good grades to the overall resource model.

So out of the 8 holes that we released today, we obviously highlighted a few in the headline that you mentioned. I can't quite verbally walk through the sections but I would encourage listeners to have a look at the press release. We included some very helpful cross-sections and long sections that give you a visual understanding of what's going on. 

But I would certainly say that a few of the key results that are getting us very excited are step outs in the southeastern portion of the deposit that are in the 100 to 200 meter range from step outs from the resource hitting broad continuous intervals of very strong copper-porphyry-style mineralization. 

Similarly, a couple of results like that over on the west side of the deposit. And then, that really big number — the 830 meters at 0.38% — that was collared as a step out to the northeast. It was a great result. A lot of that interval does sit in the center of the deposit so it does constitute infill drilling over large portions of it. But a fantastic result, nonetheless, that demonstrates the size and continuity of this resource.

Gerardo Del Real: You talk about defining the key structural controls. And for this type of deposit — that's critical, right?

Leif Nilsson: Yeah, it is. And what we're really referring to there is some post mineral faulting. So this whole region has some quite important faults that were placed after the deposits were themselves. They're quite important controls on the boundaries of the core portion of the deposit. Some of the areas, the faults are quite well-delineated. They have lots of drill holes that have pierced through the fault plane, and we've seen them in a lot of different places. So they're quite well-defined. 

In other areas of the deposit, much less so; we either don't see them in every drill hole or there just hasn't been sufficient drilling in that area. So with each additional drill hole that goes into the area — and we hit some of these important bounding structures — those are all data points that help us understand the controls and the dimensions on the deposit and help us guide future drilling as well.

Gerardo Del Real: With copper touching all-time highs, I'm sure you're keen to get back out there ASAP. I see that you're scheduled to resume drilling in late-May to early-June kind of depending on spring break-up, right?

Leif Nilsson: Yeah, that's right. And keep your eyes out for a follow-on release that we expect to put out soon with some additional details on the summer program. 

But, basically, what we're doing right now — as the final results from the winter program come in — we want to sit down with our consultants on the resource estimation side; see how the block model is shaping up and put finishing touches on planning that follow-up summer program that we expect will be less in terms of size and scale than the 20,000 meters. Probably something closer to the 5,000 meter range. 

But the intention there is to really finish the job of understanding the overall kind of dimensions and size of West Seel. So excited to get at it again in the June timeframe.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent! Leif, thank you so much for the update. Thank you for your time. Look forward to having you back on once you finalize details of that drill program.

Leif Nilsson: Great, likewise, really appreciate the time, Gerardo. Take care.

Gerardo Del Real: You as well. Thanks.

Leif Nilsson: Bye-bye.