Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

K2 Gold (TSX-V: KTO) CEO Stephen Swatton on Excitement as the First Drilling Campaign Commences at the Mojave Gold Project in California

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the President and CEO of K2 Gold (TSX-V: KTO)(OTC: KTGDF), Mr. Stephen Swatton. Steve, it's been a minute. How are you, sir? 

Stephen Swatton: I'm really good, thank you. Relieved that we have the drilling underway and really excited to see it progressing through the next three and a half weeks.

Gerardo Del Real: Let's get right to it. You had news this morning, as you mentioned, announcing the commencement of drilling. John Robins, chairman of K2 Gold, who does not impress easy and has had a heck of a run the past several years, even during the bear market, frankly, commented in the release, and let me read the quote, so I don't put words in his mouth, because, frankly, I don't have to. 

His quote is, "This project represents one of the most exciting exploration opportunities I have ever worked on. Our surface work over the last year has identified several large zones of oxide gold mineralization." And then he goes on to say that, "the commencement of drilling is a very positive step forward for the Mojave project." 

Again, Mr. Robins does not impress easy, neither do you. I know how excited you were when you picked up the project. Can you speak to the drill program and how excited you are now that the drill's turning?

Stephen Swatton: Everybody knows California's not the easiest place to work, Gerardo. The fact that we've managed to get through all the hoops that we needed to jump through with all the different interested parties, and we're still there, and we've initiated a drill program with what would be arguably one of the smallest drill rigs that you could imagine because we're flying them in by helicopter. We're leaving a very small footprint and, quite honestly, it's a credit to the guys that we've done it so smoothly and without any hitch whatsoever. So it's all going very well. 

Gerardo Del Real: You're starting with 16 holes from 4 sites on the eastern side of the property. Tell me about the targets and what you're looking for. 

Stephen Swatton: Yep. We're drilling close, but not exactly the same places as before. We've got two sites. We have Dragonfly and we have Newmont. The closest hole that we're drilling to any previous holes is 67 meters. There's a couple of them that even more than 100 meters. We're in a zone of mineralization which is approximately 1.5 to 2 kilometers long, which has been drilled with 35 holes, 20 of which were drilled by Newmont, 10 of which were drilled by BHP. 

We're starting in what would arguably be the most exciting area, where we're drilling very close to a drill trench that had 42 meters of 4 grams at surface. We're drilling fairly close to that location. We will take the next three and a half weeks. We'll be sending the samples up to Canada. As soon as we have the results, the rubbers going to hit the road.

Gerardo Del Real: You've made mention in the past about an expanded program. Anybody that's familiar with this project anticipates you're going to have some very good results. Let's hope that that proves to be the case. What is step two once this program is complete and the assays are back?

Stephen Swatton: Well, once we get those assays back obviously we'll analyze it. If it's within the realms of what we expect, which is totally what we do, we've already applied to the BLM for a larger program. This area that we're applying for is within the realms of what was approved before. I could go into the details but I won't. 

What we're trying to do is a 30-site program in the BHP, Newmont and Dragonfly areas. That would give us enough data to actually put some resource numbers around this because it's at surface, we already kind of know what we have. The expectation from this drilling and the next drilling is that we can really put our arms around it and say, "Okay, how many hundreds of thousands, if not millions of ounces do we have here?" But that is the whole game of what we're trying to do, infill drilling, but at a distance that give us credible data to load into a model.

Gerardo Del Real: You recently had some warrants expired that presented a very good opportunity for subscribers of mine to add shares on the pullback. The share price now has rebounded back near 52-week highs. You're trading right around the $0.85, $0.90 level Canadian. I couldn't help but notice that you referenced that you have $2.5 million in cash in the treasury. I suppose that's enough to complete this initial drill program?

Stephen Swatton: Yes, it is. It's more than enough and we'll have leftover. What we're anticipating is that if the market continues and results are good, we will be a good position to raise more money for the second program. 

Gerardo Del Real: I suspect that will be the case, Stephen. Thank you so much. I appreciate the heads up. Anything else that you'd like to add before I let you go? I know you have a lot on your plate.

Stephen Swatton: Nothing other than that. I've been very happy. We have bluebird skies because we've had the last three or four weeks and it's suddenly cleared. So it's looking good, all around. Thanks, Gerardo. 

Gerardo Del Real: Let's see what Mother Nature yields. Thanks again, Steve. 

Stephen Swatton: Okay, thanks.