Alaska Silver: 9,500 Meters of Drilling and Assays on the Way

0:17Trevor Hall: All right, everybody, we're about ready to close our morning here on the Tuesday edition of Zurich Precious Metals Summit, and we're going to get another update here from Alaska of Silver and new CEO, Mr. Aaron Schutt. Aaron, it's been about five or six weeks. Yeah, since October 1st, so that sounds about right. And I keep seeing you everywhere except home, so your job's got a hold of you. Yeah, that's been my life for 25, 30 years now, so just a few different places. I haven't been to Zurich for work in the past, but really enjoying the couple days here at Precious Metals. I'm sure it's been a warm welcome seeing investors and potential new investors.

0:56Yes, a lot of new potential investors and definitely some current shareholders. So great for me to get to know them. Obviously, they know Kit and Joan and Pat. And I'm learning that we have a lot of investors all over the world.

1:10Trevor Hall: Yeah, very good. What's the general theme, first takeaways of the day and a half here in Zurich? Any continuing theme that keeps coming up? Well, I keep listening to these keynotes. I want to plug my ears sometimes when I hear what's going on in the world or think about it. Obviously, we hear about it all the time, but it creates a lot of opportunities in the space we're in, in the gold and silver markets and development of mines. So that's good to hear. And then just a little bit different focus here in Europe than some of the folks we met at Beaver Creek in terms of interest in our project and education about what we're actually up to.

1:53Yeah. You know, a little bit further away for U.S. jurisdiction in Alaska here, so a little bit of educating about our home there in Alaska.

2:04Trevor Hall: So what's been different about those conversations? Well, for example, you know, most people don't know what Alaska Native Corporation is in Europe, and some people in the U.S. do, and some people that know Alaska know my former employer quite well, Doyon. Here, it would be pretty shocking to me if people did. They'd have had to do some pretty good research on their own to figure that out and know the history. So a little bit more conversation about those sorts of things and understanding how Doyon and other Alaska Native corporations can play a role in our project, even though it's all on state land, for example.

2:38Yeah, yeah.

2:39Trevor Hall: Okay. Okay, give us a sense. Things are closed up there up in Alaska. What's kind of pending here that you're waiting to get published from the expiration work? Yeah, we have a few assays that have come in, but not enough to put out a release. I would expect in the next month that you would probably see a release on some of that work and through the end of the year because our last samples left sight actually when we were in Beaver Creek. So late September, we had that extended drill program this year, 9 ,500 meters, about 5 ,000 at the Silver Sage Prospect and 4 ,500 meters at Waterpump Creek area.

3:17Okay. So we'll see that. We're doing a lot of pre-development work with the state of Alaska. I met with the large mine permit team and working on that road right away across state land as well. Okay. So continue to do that work here in the next few months as well. So look for some updates on that.

3:39Trevor Hall: I think it was back in September when we talked to Beaver Creek. I think Kit told me or told us that the whole west of Water Pump Creek that was drilled looked like it could potentially be a new system. But has anything in the core logging maybe since changed that it is? Yeah, we did two step outs west of Water Pump Creek main deposit. it the the one was about 500 meters west there's about 800 and the furthest west is in a in a carbonate sequence so it's altered so that may be next to a new mineralized area we don't know that obviously that'll when we get with our technical team this winter and figure out where we allocate our next drill holes for next summer that could be a target for sure okay but did Did the rocks look different than what you were seeing?

4:32Yeah, the one hole. And obviously, you know, and probably a lot of your listeners know I'm not a geologist, but yeah, that one hole had altered carbonate rocks, not mineralized, but it's indicative of possibly a new part of the system there in that area.

4:52Trevor Hall: Okay. So assays pending. I mean, this is going to be pretty important news. Does it feel like your market's kind of hinging on these assays? You know, we haven't had a lot of news in some time. So, yeah, I think people are waiting to hear what's happening in the assays for sure. And then, you know, the other news of what we've been up to in the last year, the team's been working on. And, for example, we sent a bulk sample down to Capuscasty in Reno to kind of figure out our metallurgy. We expect some of that news to come out in the winter here as well as that work is done. and that helped inform our next steps on the pre-development efforts at Illinois Creek, the old mine.

5:32Trevor Hall: I'm glad you mentioned Kappas Cassidy because I did want to ask you kind of what those samples, what do you expect them to prove out? Yeah, so we need to know the metallurgy on that oxide deposit there. So it has certainly gold and silver and, you know, it's 0.4 % copper. We're not able to put that in our resource. No work was done historically on the copper part, but that was part of the recovery challenge back when the mine operated as the heap leach in the late 90s. So we need to figure that out and figure out the flow sheets for how do we recover, hopefully, a lot more silver from that deposit than they did back in the 90s.

6:16And that will inform the capital costs and the mill and plant or whatever we come up with from that work and hopefully get to a PEA on that resource in some time in the next year or two as well. So, you know, a lot of progress on the pre-development efforts at Illinois Creek itself.

6:34Trevor Hall: I don't want to put the cart before the horse because I know there's a lot of things, you know, data that needs to be incorporated for, you know, to really make a decision on the question I'm about to answer. But I do want to look at 2027. Like I said, you're a month and have on the job. But there's a discussion about maybe putting a preliminary economic assessment on this project next year. However, would it be more meaningful to maybe get a full year of like a big exploration program, more definition for Illinois Creek before putting out a PEA? How are you balancing that expectation? Yeah, I think we still need to make decisions like you just mentioned.

7:21So we may do some exploration at Illinois Creek. There has been no exploration done since 1997. So the last fence of drill holes on the western edge of the pit were it, and it's open to the west. So again, we'll have to do some real work on how much do we think we can raise and how do we allocate that exploration effort across this big district with multiple targets. So those decisions have not been made, but certainly some of that work at Illinois Creek is a possibility.

7:52Trevor Hall: Yeah. Any further discussion on the gallium mineralization? No real update. We still are working with the U.S. government. I'm going to make a trip with Gary Jones to D.C. here in December to talk to the various agencies that we've applied to for some federal help on that particular resource. I would also mention that we are a charter member of the Critical Metals Accelerator at the University of Alaska. Won a large grant with the U.S. government as well. So they'll probably allocate some effort in the next few years to our project as well. And that's all the way from exploration side to process technology.

8:33So there's a whole suite of things they're working on. And we met with them at Alaska Miners last week to kind of start the discussion about how they can help us and we can help them with their grant. Yeah, all right, let's talk. No commitments yet. Sure, sure. We've just started those conversations. We are a charter member. We put that little thing on LinkedIn last week to celebrate that kickoff of that project.

8:55Trevor Hall: Let's talk about everybody's least favorite and most timely discussion. That's American politics. You really want to get into it here. Well, listen, I think there's some discussion about this sway of the Democrats into the Senate and Congress. In this sector, what does that mean for the mining sector? We have seen a lot of public money come into mining. Obviously, this started off with the prior administration. Biden really kicked off the critical minerals list and then just really exploded under the Trump administration. but it is kind of sprinkled in with speculative grift, I guess you could say.

9:40Trevor Hall: So there's discussion about the Democrats coming in and really putting a magnifying glass on this. How do you feel about that narrative? Maybe it's still yet to see, but what are you hearing on, will this momentum continue with a split government? A little bit too early to know. But I think, to your point, the Democratic Party certainly understands the market conditions with China dominating critical metals. I've participated in conferences and group discussions with government, industry, state and federal government and industry in Washington, D.C., going back to the Biden administration, my role at Doyon.

10:26And I think we all understand. The question is how much emphasis. Will the emphasis back off? We don't know. I think the UAF win in this Critical Metals Accelerator in Alaska is really important because that is funded. And they can continue that work in the space benefiting us and benefiting them, as well as a bunch of other projects in Alaska. We do have close relationships with our politicians in Alaska. I think I...

10:56Trevor Hall: That's another interesting race. Yeah, there's multiple interesting races. Yeah, so I personally know a lot of the people we're talking about here and have worked with them in the past in various capacities, so I think we'll have the opportunity to make our case to whichever party and whichever person is sitting in these important roles come January. Okay, very good. All right, Aaron, we're going to leave it at that because we're hoping that you and I will actually chat drill results next time you and I talk. I think we'll have that chance. Okay, that'd be great. It's good to see you, and we'll chat again in hopefully the next couple weeks.

11:32Trevor Hall: Alaska Silver does trade on the venture with the symbol WAM. Aaron, talk to you again soon. Thank you for your time today. The information presented should not be considered investment advice. Mining Stock Daily and its affiliates are not responsible for any loss arising from any investment decision in connection with the material presented herein. Please do your own research or speak with a licensed financial representative before making any investment decisions.