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Westhaven Gold (TSX-V: WHN)(OTC: WTHVF) CEO Gareth Thomas on Exploration & Hitting High Grade at Shovelnose Gold Project
Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the president and CEO of Westhaven Gold, Mr. Gareth Thomas. Gareth, how are you today?
Gareth Thomas: I'm very well, thank you for having me, Gerardo. Nice to talk to you again
Gerardo Del Real: It's good to have you back on. You just announced some excellent results a few days back on April the 16th. Let me read the headline. The last time you and I chatted, we talked about the importance of continuity in the different zones. And of course, grades, which eventually if you build a mine, translate into margins, right? And the headline is just spectacular. It reads, “Westhaven Drills 51.77 Metres of 4.22 g/t Gold and 46.42 g/t Silver, Including 27.85 Metres of 7.51 g/t Gold and 83.94 g/t Silver at its Shovelnose Gold Property.” You're fully financed for your 2021 exploration program. Congrats on the hit. Give it a little more context for us, Gareth.
Gareth Thomas: Sure. Yeah. So we announced that last week there. And it's nice to see the stock going up from our lows of 50 there or close there to it. So about a 39% jump, which is nice to see. I think we started this year out, we announced there, when we last spoke, we were going to be doing an inaugural or a maiden resource on the South Zone. And that's where that headline you read out came from, but we'd never done a hole closer than 50 meters apart before. So for us to go in and drill within the South Zone where we've had upwards of 400 gram meter plots there, was nice to sort of see the continuity and consistency of the grade there by this hole.
So it's nice to remind our shareholders too, that there's going to be more intercepts like that coming from there. We know these will certainly add to the ounces as we work on this maiden resource too. And obviously, not the same headline, but we're drilling the FMN zone towards the Franz zone, filling that gap as well. And since we last spoke, we're starting to see some really interesting looking veining in there as well.
We announced 8.75 meters of sub-gram there, but certainly seeing things in there that are encouraging even in the last couple of days here. So we're obviously trying to keep one finger, or I should say our pulse there in the South Zone while drilling some holes that will add to the overall resource. We believe we're just getting into that, but also exploration drilling up the FMN and Franz is ongoing and where we're liking what we're seeing up there as well.
Gerardo Del Real: You mentioned that 8.75 meter intercept, and that's hole 150, if we're talking about the same one. And that was at 0.70 g/t gold, it should be noted that that's pretty near surface. That was right at 25, starting at 25.71 meters, right?
Gareth Thomas: Yeah, that's correct. And it's easier said than done when you're looking for often what can be described as a needle in a haystack. And sometimes when we find these things it's, especially when we had the major discovery on the South Zone there, that took us, obviously not drilling what we're drilling now with two, three drills, we're doing very small programs, but that took us 65 plus meters and six years to get that high-grade intercept. Of course, we're doing things much quicker now. We found the three new zones last year, but even when we're seeing things like this, it's the veining. Obviously, not an earth-shattering result there that you just mentioned, but what we're seeing there is that we're getting very anomalous gold in this area that's had relatively very little drilling done in the big picture.
So for us to see what we're seeing, and we're starting to see multiple meters of quartz veining, which is very encouraging. And that's what we were seeing before we had the big intercept in SN-1814. And SN-1811. We drilled a deep hole there, 626 meters. But from there, what Peter and our technical team saw was that we were definitely below something of significance. So we really think it's just a matter of time here at the FMN before we start sort of piecing together all these holes. A bit of a science experiment in some ways, or a lot of geometry, if you will, trying to find out where is the heart of this vein, where's the gold being precipitated out.
So we're getting some in almost golden places for sure, but I think it's just a matter of time before our next step outs going to connect with one of these things. So yeah, we're quite encouraged on what we're seeing so far at FMN and obviously, South Zone where we're drilling some step outs now at South Zone too. And like I said, where we hope they'll add to the overall flavor of, or of the resource that we're going to have at the end of this year Q4 2021.
Gerardo Del Real: I noticed your exploration manager who you just referenced, Peter, there starting to talk about deflecting somewhat towards the North, right? And then possibly defining what he describes as a kink in the structure. And those are important course, because if you can vector in towards that higher grade then, as you said, the anomalous gold isn't earth-shattering, or a big headline, but it's the process. It's how you vector towards that higher grade type of hit, right?
Gareth Thomas: A hundred percent, you nailed that pretty good there, Gerardo. Yeah. What Peter mentioned in his quote there in our last news release site, I was up there speaking with Peter there in the office on Friday in Merritt and we went through his leapfrog models. And sometimes it's easier to look at these things in a more 3D sort of light. And what we see there is that the FMN where we thought this was going towards the Franz, we're now seeing this might be a splay that's heading more to the North. and we're doing oriented core, I should mention too. So we're getting a ton of good information on measuring these vein angles and where they might be coming from.
It's a bit of a process, as you just mentioned there too, getting all this information, which sometimes can take a little time and figuring out. But from Peter's perspective, he can see those things quicker than most. And he thinks that this is definitely going more to the North where we know we have the Franz outcrop there more to the Northwest. And so yeah, it's going to be a telling few holes here, as we start to close this gap more on where this potential higher grade zone will be. So it's exciting. But yeah, as you said, it can be a bit of a process when you’re… Sometimes you just need to drill to get to these things and that's what we're doing.
Gerardo Del Real: Well, you're cashed up, you have the treasury to continue to drill, you have excellent infrastructure, which leads of course, to lower drilling costs. So I think you're in the sweet spot. We have gold cooperating a bit today, let's hope that trend continues. Walk me through what it looks like the next quarter or two for assays and the resource estimate that you're looking to prepare.
Gareth Thomas: Yep. Will do. So as mentioned here and mentioned before, when we spoke last, we're still predominantly an exploration drill bit story. We got a lot of good targets here. So for continuing on at the FMN there, as we just talked about, we got a drill in the South Zone where we're adding to the continuity there as well. We're looking to drill the Franz Zone to the Northwest as well, where we drilled once again, not a super flashy intercept, but late last year we drilled a three and a half meters of, I think it was 0.7 again there, but what Peter and the team saw there was a four and a half meter wide sort of calcite vein, which with more characteristics of somewhere up or up higher in the system. So and we've now done geophysics around there.
We did some DC resistivity surveys, which indicate that this thing's probably being down faulted or down dropped. So what we were picking up there is probably the higher parts of the system, and we need to get underneath that. So we're hoping within the next week, a week and a half, we'll be on that target at Franz. We're still following up in the FMN and the drill in the South. We're looking to get a third rig here in the near future as well. Then we have some pretty obvious targets as mentioned. The third vein zone to the North is carrying on there, that's open at the Lear. Then we have a few more targets down to the Southwest called the Curtain and Brookmere, which we discovered the Brookmere many years ago. It's a nice looking vein on surface, albeit no gold numbers, but we're seeing very good pathfinder elements in there.
Good indications that we're once again, high up in the system and what's below there. So we'll be drill testing the Curtain, the Brookmere, and then about four kilometers as the crow flies to the east, we have the Romeo, which is a kilometer and a half long hydrothermal breccia, where we have some very nice pathfinder anomalies and even gold there on surface. So lots of targets that we're just trying to, when we use all these tools, the CSAMT the LIDAR, the soil geochemistry, we’re working very hard and diligently behind the scenes here, trying to piece all these tools together to help delineate these targets and really firm them up. So yeah, many targets, which is going to lead to lots of news flow here. Should have consistent news flow now. The labs are a little slower towards the end of last year and so it took us a while to get some results, but those things seem to have sped up quite a bit.
So, yeah. Then we're working towards that maiden resource come end of this year. So cashed up, as you mentioned there, we have about $11.5 million cash on hand right now. I should also mention that we get an exploration tax credit. So for every hard dollar we spend, we get 20% back of that, the following year. And we're also in the Pine Beetle Kill area. So, that's an additional 10%. So we'll be expecting another cash injection of about $2 million sometime in the summer. So, that's a nice little thing to add to our cash position. And budget wise, we're looking to spend about $10 million this year, though, that could change quite quickly, granted, I mean, depending on what we're seeing here as well. So if we start seeing something that we know we're onto something again, then that could easily up our budget there, which of course, is a good thing.
Gerardo Del Real: It's a lot of news flow and a lot to like. Gareth, that was a great update. Thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate it.
Gareth Thomas: Yeah. You're very welcome. Anytime, Gerardo, I appreciate your support.
Gerardo Del Real: All right. Chat soon.
Gareth Thomas: Will do.