Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Mawson Gold (TSX: MAW) CEO Michael Hudson on Upcoming Aggressive Season of Drilling at the Redcastle Gold Project in Australia & Rajapalot Gold Project in Finland

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the Chairman and CEO of Mawson Gold (TSX: MAW)(OTC: MWSNF), Mr. Michael Hudson. Mike, how are you?

Michael Hudson: I'm great today. Thank you, Gerardo. Thanks for having me back.

Gerardo Del Real: Thanks for coming on on very short notice. There's a lot going on with Mawson Gold right now. We're anticipating assays from Australia and you had just had some news regarding diamond drilling and geophysics, which could potentially be game changers in Finland. Let's start with Australia. How are things coming along there, Mike?

Michael Hudson: We put up an update last week that said that we'll have results by the end of the month, which is going to be very close. We anticipate we'll be able to meet that. We have a second rig that started this week. We've got two drill rigs turning at the Redcastle property. This is the pointy end of the business, so to speak, and we look forward to everything that will throw up. Three holes completed at Sunday Creek, two rigs at Redcastle – one of those rigs, I think, will go back to Sunday Creek in the coming weeks – and four geophysical teams; two IP teams, a gravity team and a ground mag team.

Gerardo Del Real: I'll speculate that it's not going back to Sunday Creek because you want to not find gold.

Michael Hudson: Well, you got to be careful as geologists. Geologists are out there to find it, not to prove that it's not there. Sometimes programs get to that stage, but we're a million miles from even thinking about that. We're going back to find a lot more gold, I hope.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. I mentioned the potential for a game-changing discovery in Finland. You just announced diamond drilling and geophysics. The reason it might be game-changing is because this drilling and the geophysics is in an area that allows for year-round drilling. This is the first time, as I understand it from the release, that you've been able to fully apply the geological and geophysical understanding of the mineral system. Is that accurate?

Michael Hudson: Yeah. 80% of our project in Finland is permitted for summer and winter drilling. It just happens that the resource areas and the resource upgrade that we put out last week is mostly, in fact all of that resource is in winter-permitted areas, very swampy and part of an area that's only permitted for us to work from December to April, from a drilling point of view. 

We're now getting to the stage of the project, we're starting to build a critical mass. We put out 600,000 ounces of gold at over 2 grams alone, that went over 700,000 ounces on gold equivalent basis with the cobalt. It's starting to develop a critical mass, we're going to go back and drill with 5 rigs, extending that from December. But if we were to find something outside of those winter-only drill areas, that would give us a full year-round coverage to drill out resources. That's sort of becoming one of the pinch points of this project is to make it as big as possible in as short a time as possible. Of course you can't do that with seasonal drilling alone.

We haven't really been out in these areas. There's 5 kilometers of strike we're testing in two areas. Immediately along strike, we're talking 500 meters along strike from the resource areas and beyond. All the right signatures. We've done something like 1,700 base of till drill holes, which are short holes beneath the glacial till that covers 99% of the area. We're running geophysics now. You touched on it in the question, we're applying the geological knowledge that has come out of the last year and a half's drilling that has created that resource, where we haven't been able to apply that thinking in these areas ever before. 

Like any exploration program, it's incremental, the knowledge buildup. You collect a lot of data and you interpret that data. We're pretty excited. We haven't run EM in these areas and that's been the main tool we've used to define and extend these resource areas to half a kilometer depth from surface. Yeah, exciting opportunity here and at any point it could be a game changer.

Gerardo Del Real: Lots of potential game changers, Mike. What are you going to do with the bounty, if you prove successful in both Australia and in Finland?

Michael Hudson: Well, hopefully make shareholders a lot of money.

Gerardo Del Real: It's a lot of rigs. It's a lot of newsflow. An exciting couple of months to be had for sure. What's the cash position look like?

Michael Hudson: We're around $16.5 million dollars Canadian. So, well-financed. We've got 9 rigs planning to be turning this year, 5 coming in in winter, December in Finland. We've got three rigs turning as we speak, one in Finland and two in Australia. Then we've got the optionality of drilling along strike from one of the biggest silver mines on earth, up in Mount Isa, with a fully-funded drill hole up there, testing a big, big gravity mag target undercover. That will start next month or so.

Gerardo Del Real: Sounds like the cash position will allow you to withstand a couple of down days in the gold space, huh?

Michael Hudson: Without a doubt. We are executing and creating value and the market does what it chooses to do, but the only way we can create value fundamentally is to drill.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, you've been aggressive, but you've been very efficient and methodical. Mike, congrats to you and the team. I am looking forward to those results from Australia.

Michael Hudson: We'll talk soon I'm sure, Gerardo.

Gerardo Del Real: Appreciate it, Mike. Thanks again for your time.

Michael Hudson: Thanks mate.

Click here to see more from Mawson Gold Ltd.