Copper Investor Hub: Looking back to the start of 2017, SolGold had just entered the FTSE AIM UK 50 Index, comprising the 50 largest AIM companies by market capitalisation. SolGold’s shares have almost doubled in the six months since, what do you attribute the gain to?

Nick Mather: There are a number of factors that we attribute the gain to. The biggest factor is that SolGold’s story finally reached the market. We were finally able to get a response to our world class project. We had been sitting on the spectacular results for a long time, but the market just didn’t seem to pick it up. We credit this realisation to our now major shareholders; Newcrest Mining, Guyana Goldfields and Maxit Capital. Maxit raised funds for us at double the share price, twice. Bob Sangha’s (Maxit) ability to realise the value in a project is what really gave us a breakthrough. Newcrest put in a bid against BHP for 10% of SolGold (two majors bidding for the company really put a spark in the news flow) which then gave us a steady start. The market then caught on to the fact that we have a tier 1 deposit on our hands and from there it has been a steady rise up.

Copper Investor Hub: There’s been a strong flow of exploration results around the Alpala deposit in recent months, including Hole 24 nearly doubling the strike length of known mineralisation at the Alpala trend to 1300m. What do you see as a standout?

Nick Mather: There are a lot of really outstanding features. For me, the high grades in the core of Alpala and the flat sub horizontal vein features. The high grades present us with low capex low tonnage, early stage development possibilities which alleviate the need to rely on expensive equity farm outs with majors. We will look to do this ourselves. 

The flat structure indicate potential for a huge lateral extent, especially north east, which is supported by magnetics and geochemistry.  It’s open along strike, north east and at depth.

Copper Investor Hub: How have the results from Alpala impacted the wider exploration programme and Cascabel’s remaining untested targets?

Nick Mather: We now believe that several targets clustered within the Alpala area may coalesce. Recent composite interpretation of detailed cross-sections and level plans through the Alpala deposit show a series of quartz diorite intrusions that have contributed to form large volumes of high-grade mineralisation. These early intrusions and their related zones of multi-directional quartz vein stockworks generated extensive mineralisation that is inferred to coalesce into a much larger exploration along the greater Alpala system.

The bounds of the greater Alpala system (the ‘Trivinio - Alpala Southeast’ trend) remain untested and the company expects to rapidly grow the size of the copper-gold deposit at Alpala, as well as the copper-gold mineralisation at Aguinaga, through subsequent drilling.

The presence of magnetite with chalcopyrite and bornite with potassic alteration endorses the predictive nature of the 3D Magnetic model at Cascabel. The magnetic bodies at Alpala, Moran and Aguinaga constitute approximately 15 billion tonnes of untested magnetic rock. We are excited by the strong correlation to date between magnetic signatures and copper mineralisation in this system.

The only impact results from Alpala have had are a delay in drilling the remaining targets. We want to really define the Alpala target(s) before starting an aggressive drill program on the others. We still don’t know the size of the greater Alpala deposit and believe it is a crucial part to getting an accurate mineral resource down the track.

Recently, ground magnetics has endorsed the size of the Alpala cluster and the other targets previously defined and we’ve come up with additional targets as well, notably in the south west, east of Aguinaga and east of Tandayama-America.

Copper Investor Hub: You’ve got a fourth rig headed to site, and up to 10 rigs planned before the end of next year – what targets are you prioritising in the coming months and why?

Nick Mather: Alpala East, Alpala West, Carmen, Trivinio, Aguinaga and Tandayama-America are the next high priority targets within the Cascabel concession, plus the newer targets including in the south west east of Aguinaga and east of Tandayama-America.

Rigs 5 and 6 will be stationed at Hematite Hill and Alpala Southest to expand on the growing resource potential by the end of July. Rig 7 will be drill testing the Aguinaga prospect and is scheduled for mobilisation in August.

With the addition of an eighth rig, we will be able to commence drill testing of the Tandayama-America prospect by the end of the year. The remaining two rigs planned will reach Cascabel during 2018.

We aim to delineate the system limits along the greater Alpala trend before expanding to the low priority targets. Our high priorities are based off of our state of the art geophysics, 3D MVI Magentic Modelling and IP surveys. We’ve chosen these six targets as the highest priority as they show strong similarities to Alpala’s geophysics. Aguinaga also being a high priority due to surface outcropping.

The new access road which was put forward to the provincial government by the local community and SolGold was completed in 2016 (running from Cecilia Village to Carmen Village via Alpala) and has allowed us to start concentrating on our other priority targets as it gives us an easier and more direct route to each location.

Copper Investor Hub: SolGold has pointed to strong similarities between Alpala and Newcrest Mining-Harmony Gold’s Golpu copper-gold porphyry deposit in Papua New Guinea. How do you believe they compare?

Nick Mather: They have similar dimensions and grades. The main differences however are outstanding and include that Golpu is a singular orebody while Alpala is part of a cluster, and Alpala has exceptional logistics advantages while Golpu is in the middle of the PNG jungle.

Copper Investor Hub: Ecuador has made changes to its windfall and sovereign adjustment taxes, which were highlighted at PDAC in Toronto in March. How do you rate Ecuador in terms of a mining investment destination?

Nick Mather: It’s an outstanding place and getting better. The government is doing a lot of work to continually improve the position. Obviously Lundin Gold is a great pioneer with the development of Fruta del Norte.

Copper Investor Hub: SolGold has presented at PDAC, Mines and Money New York and at 121 Mining Investment in the Big Apple this year. What are your take-home messages to investors?

Nick Mather: The main message is that we are cashed up to do the work, the company is resourced with the best technical experts available and will soon be listed on TSX as well as London Main Board and should be included in various resource indices.

The project is getting bigger and that’s only one of several targets at Cascabel. The high grades and the 1:1 copper gold ratio provides numerous funding solutions for SolGold and the clear endorsement of the technical merits by Newcrest should show the world that we are all confident that the underground block cave potential for this deposit is a real advantage, as are the spectacular logistic advantages.

Lastly, replicating the Alpala blueprint across Ecuador will give us a shot at up to 22 other targets and so we think the upside in SolGold we’ve seen over the past year can be repeated.