Mawson aims to expand gold resource in Finland
Mawson Gold Ltd. [MAW-TSX; MWSNF-OTC; MXR-FSE] said Wednesday January 27 that it has launched a 2021 resource expansion drill program at its 100%-owned Rajapalot Project in Finland.
The company said four diamond drill rigs are on site and it expects to complete 20,000 metres of drilling by mid-April 2021.
The move comes after Mawson recently said the estimated gold-cobalt mineral resource at Rajapalot project has doubled in the last 20 months.
The open pit and underground constrained inferred mineral resource is estimated to be 9.0 million tonnes averaging 2.1 g/t gold, 570 ppm cobalt, an amount that equates to 2.5 g/t gold equivalent or 600,000 ounces (716,000 oz AuEq).
On Wednesday, Mawson shares were largely unchanged, rising 1.5% or $0.005 to 33.5 cents in light trading. The shares are currently trading in a 52-week range of 57 cents and 16 cents.
In September, 2020, Mawson said an updated mineral resource estimate had doubled the tonnage with a similar grade in comparison to a previous estimate of 4.3 million tonnes at 2.3 g/t gold, 430 ppm cobalt announced in December 2016.
The Rajapalot Project forms the eastern part of a 10 by 10-km area consisting of three resource bodies plus two new discovery areas within a 4.0 by 3.0-km area in Northern Finland. The project is just south of the Arctic Circle in Finnish Lapland.
Rajapalot is on a runway towards further resource expansion with only 5.0% of the mineralized host horizon tested within a 100 km2 area, the company has said.
“The doubling of the Rajapalot gold-cobalt inferred resource is another key milestone for the project we originally found as a single outcrop in a swamp a number of years ago, as the project starts to take critical form,” said Mawson Chairman and CEO Michael Hudson.
“A majority of the resource upgrade came from the 14-kilometre drill program completed earlier [in 2020], after our geological team cracked the geological model and the structural association of gold within electromagnetic conductors,” Hudson said. He went on to say that Mason is fully funded and permitted to expand and infill the mineral resource.
The aim is to significantly expand the current 716,000 equivalent ounce inferred resource by infilling and expanding high-grade areas with resources, in combination with drill testing newly-defined near-surface resources and targets along strike from current resource areas.