Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Aguila American Gold (TSX-V: AGL) CEO Mark Saxon on the WUSA Gold Project in Oregon and Recent Financing

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the president and CEO of Aguila American Gold Mr. Mark Saxon. Mark, how are you?

Mark Saxon: Hey, Gerardo. Good afternoon. Doing well across here in Australia, and hope you are doing the same.

Gerardo Del Real: I am. Well, thank you for asking. It's good to have you on. I know this is a milestone moment for the company. You just signed your drill contract for your project. I understand the rig will be turning very, very shortly. Care to provide some details?

Mark Saxon: Yeah, absolutely. As you say, it's a milestone moment and really the first drilling program for a company that is just starting on its path is obviously a big moment. So, we're excited about that. The project in Oregon, we've now signed a drill contract, and so we're days to a week or two away from the arrival of that rig on site. So, that's really the moment where our ideas come together, and it goes from being desktop to real world testing of our targets. So, that's obviously a very important time. We're very appreciative of the driller that's sending a rig to us. Gold is doing extremely well in the US, and everyone's very busy. So, we're very encouraged by the results we've seen at surface, and we hope to be part of that momentum in the gold industry in the US.

Gerardo Del Real: Now the initial program is relatively modest, but I see that you were keen to include that it could be expanded based on positive results. So, my understanding is that you're drilling 750 meters and up to five holes at the Scorpion-Cinnabar project. Is that correct?

Mark Saxon: Yeah, that's correct, Gerardo, and I guess to take a bit more of a regional view. The project, which we call the WUSA Gold Project, W-U-S-A... Not the classiest of names. So, Western USA was where it came from. The WUSA Gold Project is in southern Oregon, and it's got a fairly short history of exploration, it has to be said because it's been held by one landholder. Both the surface rights and the mineral rights have been held by the one land holder for about 150 years. Quite a remarkable story of ownership.

So, over that 150 years that owner has let almost nobody onto the project area to do exploration. We sit very close to quite a large gold mining district, which is called Bohemia. Bohemia was like one of the California gold rush areas, but happened to be just a little bit further north. We're just adjacent to that. But yeah, this area has been behind locked gates for 150 years, so we're one of the first companies to get there. It's had some surface sampling in the past, which was obviously streams and saw sampling, which identified some targets, including Scorpion-Cinnabar.

So, Scorpion-Cinnabar has up to five grams per tonne of gold in source samples, which is remarkably high, which exceptional. That hasn't been drilled. We don't know where that's coming from. There's been one hole drilled there in the past, which was targeting original target, and so now we've got the opportunity to go back and follow up on that and see what lies beneath. So, very new project, but in a really exciting area.

Gerardo Del Real: What type of system are you, are you drilling into Mark? I couldn't help but notice that the site is only about 1.8 kilometers south of a very well-known mercury mine. So, tell me a bit more about the system and the type of target that you're drilling into.

Mark Saxon: Absolutely, Gerardo. The indications that we've got so far and from past exploration work that we have would say it's either a low sulfidation or high sulfidation epithermal system, so very similar to all of the deposits, I guess, that lie between BC all the way through Nevada, down Arizona, into Mexico, into Chile, Peru. It relates to where the Pacific plate is colliding into the American plates and forming the string of volcanoes.

Very well known system, and you think of the Ring of Fire with all the gold that sits around the Pacific Rim. We've got great indications in the gold obviously, but also the alteration styles and, as you mentioned, the mercury as well. So, mercury is a very strong indicator of these systems and, and formed in near surface at high-level settings as is characteristic of epithermal mineralization.

Gerardo Del Real: You're in Oregon. As far as the labs go, what labs do you plan on using, and have you been in touch in regards to some of the delays that several companies are experiencing due to the active nature of the exploration season right now?

Mark Saxon: Yeah, sure. I guess the multiplier effect of a high gold price and very busy drill rigs and laboratories and everything being slowed down a little by COVID means that labs are being cautious with timelines, I suppose, as you would understand. Our exploration team comes out of Nevada, and so the samples will go back into Nevada and be assayed through the laboratories there and perhaps the final analysis done up in Vancouver, I think as well. So doing the best we can in that regard, but yeah, as you say, it's very busy times. So, I think we'll be seeing results into Q1 next year by the time the core gets cut and the samples go through the laboratories.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Mark, anything else that you'd like to add? I know you recently completed a financing. I'm biased. I participated. I'm a shareholder, as I usually am if I'm speaking with someone. I'm biased because I most likely like the team and the project and the group involved or I wouldn't be speaking with you. All right?

But anything else that you'd like to add? You're well cashed up. You're in a good position to expand the program if you see success. I know in the past we've talked about potentially looking at other projects. You and your team have a deep network of contacts and access that in this type of bull market can prove very, very valuable. Are you on the M&A hunt at all? Are you looking for other projects?

Mark Saxon: Absolutely, Gerardo. We're very gold focused. The US is a first target for us, but followed by, I guess, Canada or Australia, jurisdictions where it's easy to get work done. It's easy to find good projects that are coming out of other companies that are doing good work here. So, we're speaking to people every single day about other projects and opportunities.

We're happy with where we are in terms of the Oregon project, but we're always mindful, I guess, of keeping the pipeline full. And thank you very much as well for mentioning that recent financing. So, the company is well cashed up, and I appreciate the disclosure of yourself being a shareholder. We're in a very good position, both on the Oregon project and also on whatever comes next. It's a very strong, interesting time for the company.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, few things get me as excited as the drill bit turning and the potential for a discovery, so I am looking forward to having you back on, Mark. Thank you so much.

Mark Saxon: Thanks, Gerardo. Keep well. Chat soon.

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