Categories: Base Metals
Topics: General Base Metals

T2 Metals (TSX-V: TWO)(OTCQB: AGLAF) CEO Mark Saxon on Drilling at the Sherridon Copper-Zinc Project, Manitoba

 

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the CEO of T2 Metals, Mr. Mark Saxon. Mark, you're doing something not a lot of juniors in your position are doing right now, and that is you're drilling. How are you today?

Mark Saxon: Gerardo, good afternoon. Great to talk to you. Yes, very happy to say we've got a rig turning in Manitoba at the moment. Yeah, as you mentioned, it's a tough industry at the moment and we're very pleased to be out there spending some money on a great project. Happy to be one of the guys that are getting work done.

Gerardo Del Real: Listen, let's get right into it. For those that aren't familiar with the project, this is a brownfield past producing project that hasn't seen drilling in, I want to say decades, correct me if I'm wrong. The most recent, I believe, was in the last decade or so.

I'm curious to see what your approach is. I know there was a ton of data that you and the team put together to delineate the drill targets. I think it's good to start with an overview of the project, the last time it saw this type of drilling, and then let's talk about what you're targeting.

Mark Saxon: Yeah, sure. I guess the project's got an interesting history, like most projects do, I guess. It was a mining project up until, I think it was 1951. It produced around 8 million tonnes of 3% copper, 3% zinc, kind of over the 15 years up to that 1951. Yeah, mined during the war years and was a significant Canadian producer of copper.

It sat quiet for a period after that, and then Hudbay got involved, then transferred to a company called Halo Resources. Then the work on the project kind of stopped about 2011 and metal prices were falling. The industry was quite tough at that stage and some corporate restructuring just meant that nobody ever went back. Lots of money had been spent on the project, about 140 drill holes, I think it was, that was put in by Halo Resources.

Because the corporate structure changed, the opportunity came to us to reset a company, to acquire the project really cheaply, and to get back out there and get working again at this stage now. It's a VHMS project, which is very similar with other projects in that district.

The companies that are doing really well, I guess, at the moment. Across the border in Saskatchewan, we've got Foran Mining with their McIlvenna Bay project doing really well with a project that is about twice the size in terms of tonnes to what we have in resources south with Hudbay in the Flin Flon Camp. They've just done a major joint venture with a Japanese company across in Snow Lake; still a very big mining operation for copper and gold.

It's a really active region, and yeah, the Manitoba government is great support, First Nations have been very supportive, and so yeah, it's a great place to be investing.

Gerardo Del Real: You've done a really, really good job of engaging the local stakeholders and the surrounding communities, and I know that's a partnership that is critical in advancing this project. How are things on that front?

Mark Saxon: Yeah. Yeah, that's something. Obviously, coming from Australia, we work with First Nations groups here as well on a daily basis, and it's a very important part of our industry. It took a little bit of time, I guess, to know the people and engage ourselves in the community, and make sure the money that we're spending is going in the right places. Yeah, we've certainly crossed that bridge now and built some really good relationships.

We're using local people and people from the Kiciwapa Cree, wherever we can in our work, and employing and skill transfer, I guess, as well as part of that process. That's gone really well. Yeah, very pleased with the group of people we're working with. The local village of Sherridon has a fishing lodge, a small camp, and we're basing ourselves out of that fishing lodge. Again, that means we're spending as much money as we possibly can in that local community and getting great support in return.

Gerardo Del Real: Let's talk about the targets. We mentioned it's a past producing property. I mentioned the extensive data set that you had to crunch. Talk to me about these targets and talk to me about what you're hoping to find.

Mark Saxon: Yeah. I guess we've got two visions on the project. The area as a whole is a VHMS project, so volcanic hosted massive sulfide. I guess when you traditionally think about those projects, you're thinking about metals coming out on a sea floor tens, hundreds, thousands of millions of years ago. That horizon of metal-rich sediment then gets sort of folded and deformed and buried in the Earth's crust, so we're exploring for that style of deposit. There's been two deposits that have been mined, and there's another five areas that have got historic resources developed that were calculated in 2010 by the previous owner.

We've collated all of the information from each of those areas, identifying the resource and where that's at, which on the whole is close to surface. We've gone back and we've looked at opportunities to infill some of those resources, and then we'll also be looking down dip and at deeper levels below those resources where there's a large tonnage potential.

At the moment, the total resource is about 20 million tonnes at about 1% copper equivalent. Most of that's sitting very close to surface in an open pit setting. I guess some of the magic of Sherridon is that we've got both road and we've also got a rail line, an active rail line, that passes through the middle of the property, so we are able to be quite nimble in how we approach the project. A resource that's close to surface and medium size can go into an open pit and get onto a train and go back into Flin Flon for processing, yeah, very, very quickly.

We've got those kind of dual motives, so yeah, always looking for that big mother lode at deeper levels, but we've got lots of great opportunities of near-surface mineralization as well.

Gerardo Del Real: I've got to believe what's already there is worth a whole heck of a lot more than the $5 million market cap. If this was the only project in the portfolio, you would be extremely undervalued. There are other projects of merit in the portfolio, we'll get to those at another time. But I'm excited to have the drills turning. I am looking forward to results.

When do you anticipate starting to see assays come in? I know visually it's a copper zinc project. You're going to be able to know right away if you're into the right kind of rocks and the kind of mineralization that you're hitting. But again, as far as assays go, when do you anticipate those?

Mark Saxon: Yeah, so we announced just today that we've got the drill rig on site. Yeah, so that's there, that's turning. We've got people on site, we've got a courtyard built, we've got things underway, so yeah, give us a month to six weeks.

Yeah, the industry has obviously slowed down a little, so the turnaround in assay time has improved. Yeah, so a month or six weeks, so yeah, something into the second half of October into November is when we're seeing the assays flow through.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. It goes quick. We're at the end of September; October, obviously right around the corner. Mark, anything else to add to that?

Mark Saxon: No, that's enough, Gerardo. We're looking forward to sharing more in the future. Yeah, we've got some great targets and doing great work.

Gerardo Del Real: Fantastic. Good catching up. Thank you again.

Mark Saxon: Thanks Gerardo, chat soon.