Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Westhaven Gold (TSX-V: WHN)(OTC: WTHVF) CEO Gareth Thomas on Drilling Out a Near-Surface Bulk-Tonnage Gold Resource in British Columbia, Canada

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the president & CEO of Westhaven Gold — Mr. Gareth Thomas. Gareth, you are one of the rare gold stocks moving up higher this week on the back of some phenomenal results today. How are you doing?

Gareth Thomas: I'm well, thanks, Gerardo. Good to talk to you.

Gerardo Del Real: It's great to have you on. You had a release this morning. The news was spectacular: 

You drilled 85.45 meters of 1.09 grams per tonne (g/t) gold and 2.43 g/t silver, including 3.14 meters of 10.80 g/t gold and 24.80 g/t silver at your Shovelnose project. 

Congrats on the numbers! Give me some context on them.

Gareth Thomas: Yeah, so these were holes towards the north end of our South Zone resource. So as we've discussed in the last few calls here, really, we'll have a maiden inaugural resource on our South Zone coming out. 

We were originally aiming for end of this year but due to the wildfire situation, the fires up there, we were under an evacuation order for about four weeks. So we're a little bit behind on just getting those last holes we want to get into the resource. So we're still hoping for year-end but more than likely going to be early-January 2022. 

But these holes today, that one in particular, No. 35, where, really, at the north end of the South Zone as you actually get into more of the Alpine and Lear Zone. So it's good from the perspective that we're seeing these, albeit a bit lower grade, but certainly broad intervals or halos of more disseminated gold. 

And we think it bodes well for — as we move up to the northwest where we're certainly, or north and northwest, we're seeing, really — what we think is going to be a nice addition to the resource.

Gerardo Del Real: I think that the market is starting to get the robustness of the system over at the South Zone and the potential to expand. I know that the resource drilling is now complete, and I understand that you're now focused completely on exploration targets. Is that accurate?

Gareth Thomas: Yeah. And, I think, complete for this year now in terms of the South Zone. We had to stop somewhere. We want to see roughly what we have here at the South Zone. By no means is this sort of put in stone; it’s a maiden inaugural resource. 

We think, as we move north, as I said, this is the best hole we've drilled to the north-northwest in terms of grade thickness. There's going to be a lot more to give. We haven't drilled much more north than here so we want to keep going here. But for the time being, while the resource is being worked on, we're now back at the FMN where we drilled just under 16 meters of 9 grams there. I think it was released in June.

So we're now back drilling that from the southwest towards the northeast. So we're coming at it from a more favorable angle to hit gold mineralization. So we just started one rig up there. Then, we have another rig down focusing west of the South Zone on some CSAMT anomalies, or resistivity anomalies, that look similar to the South Zone; shows up quite nicely. 

So a bit more exploration focused but really exciting times for myself. I like these programs now where the drill is focused a bit more on exploration. So yeah, it's always exciting but now I'm quite excited to see what we can unearth here.

Gerardo Del Real: It's a busy, busy Q4. You're working on that resource estimate. You still have, I believe, 18 holes that are pending assays, correct?

Gareth Thomas: Correct. And more being drilled as we speak. We're at about 36,000 meters for the year right now. And we'll be above 40,000 by, all said and done, by the time we get to December. So yeah, rigs turning right up until the first couple of weeks in December. So busy times!

Gerardo Del Real: Fully financed, correct?

Gareth Thomas: Fully funded. Yeah, we're good… I just got off a call now at this conference, and that question has arisen a lot, I should say, and we're good until well into Q1 of next year; probably into Q2 of next year.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Exciting times! Lots of news flow. Drills are turning. Thank you so much for the update, and hopefully we can catch up soon again.

Gareth Thomas: Yeah, thank you, Gerardo. And I appreciate it!

Gerardo Del Real: Alright, Gareth, take care out there.

Gareth Thomas: Okay, you too. Thanks.