Alaska Silver CEO Aaron Schutt on a Record 9,496 Metres at Illinois Creek

0:00Thank you.

0:30Western Alaska and the site of a former mine, Aaron Schutt. He assumed CEO duties for retiring Kit Mars three weeks ago. Aaron, welcome to Mining Stock Daily. Congratulations. Thank you. Glad to be here. Appreciate the chance to talk to you today. Now, Aaron, in your October 8th news release, you said the original 6 ,000 meter drill program was completed early, which you allowed to push out to 9 ,496. Why is this extra 3 ,500 meters meaningful? Well, as people know, Alaska know, you only have a certain amount of time in the summer before it gets cold and dark, and maximizing your time during the summer is critically important.

1:14So we had drills available, we had crews available, we had to raise a little extra money to continue the work, and obviously this is a large district with a lot of potential, so the more holes you can get in the ground, the better your chance to advance the project. When do you think the results from the assays will start to trickle in and in what order? I believe that those jewelries, I believe that the core has to take a bit of a circuitous route to get down to the lab assays. I saw barge in Western Alaska, Mexico, and then U.S. Yeah, that's right. So the short answer is They are trickling in already, but the order and predictability, because things go out by airplane, usually to Anchorage or Fairbanks, and then sometimes by truck to Canada or United States or even Mexico to get the assays done.

2:09And the samples sometimes are split up. So how it comes in is a little bit unpredictable. But they are starting to come in. We expect results from this time of year through the close of the calendar or maybe a little bit into January. Aaron, at the top of your deck, you do mention gallium potential at WBC and silver sage. In your deck, you said that the critical mineral could lead to faster permitting and non-dilutive government funding. Where does that potentially stand right now in terms of being able to get government interested in what you're finding with gallium there? Yeah, so we have submitted some applications with a couple different U.S.

2:51federal government agencies that are very interested in gallium. It's at the top of the critical minerals list. the Department of Defense, the Department of Energy, our two Department of Commerce also has money available in the critical mineral space to facilitate development. So we don't have a commitment from the federal government yet, but I will be making a trip with one of our other senior members of the team here in a few weeks to Washington, D.C. to do some follow-up on that. I think I've seen around Alaska a number of different minerals companies at different stages, getting some help from the federal government, both on the money side as well as on the permitting and other necessary aspects of project development.

3:38So there are a lot of different things they can do to help us. And the state government is the same. They might not have quite as much money, but they can also facilitate certain aspects of development. Now, you said in the October 8th news release, the drilling and metallurgical samples will provide important information towards a possible preliminary economic assessment. What data do you have right now and what needs to be filled in still? Yes, so there's a lot of historic data from the operations of the Illinois Creek Mine in the late 1990s and very early 2000s. But there's a lot that wasn't done at that time.

4:15Some full assays weren't available for much of that system, even though 550 drill holes were completed during the exploration development and production time frame of that mine metallurgy is something we're definitely focused on in terms of the gold and silver but there's also fairly significant copper in that ore body and getting the metallurgy right so that the next time when we develop the mine, we have the flow sheets correct to maximize recoveries of hopefully all three metals. Can you talk a little bit about the copper? I believe that when the mine was operating there in the 90s, it wasn't something that was recovered, but I believe since we've just had these rocketing copper prices, then it certainly makes sense there right now with what you're focused on at Illinois.

5:11yeah it's there's two components to doing the metallurgy with the copper one is it might be economic at those grades but more importantly it disrupts it was known to disrupt the recoveries from the processing they were doing in the 90s so it dramatically decreased the recovery of silver in particular and that's something we need to address either way so hopefully the flow sheet can correspond to actually recovering economic copper, but in order for us to operate a mine, we definitely need to address the recoveries of silver. Are you looking at needing to do any more raises before next year's exploration plan?

5:52Yes, we definitely will be doing a raise before next season. We had a very significant drill program. We're probably targeting the first quarter of 27 for that raise. And then in addition to just exploration, of course, we have some pre-development efforts on the Illinois Creek mine itself as well. On gathering data, we have an application into the state government here in Alaska for our right-of-way over to the Yukon River. So we're doing some work on that as well. So kind of balancing the pre-development efforts with the exploration efforts next season. Now, Aaron, I know that you're waiting on the assays for what you've drilled, but do you have any type of shape right now in terms of what you're going to be exploring next year versus what you were able to hit this year?

6:44We're definitely talking about how we'll balance those exploration dollars. There's a number of prospects in the district that deserve work. the things up in the northern block near round top and tgtg north haven't seen a drill program in a while probably need to do a little bit not committing to that here for next summer but definitely in the mix silver sage the discovery last year that saw 5 000 meters this year depending on the results that we get in here in the next few months definitely Illinois is in the mix for part of the program, the Water Pump Creek as well. And then we might do a little bit of work at Illinois Creek Mine proper because that one's open to the west and at depth and understanding the structure a little better from the data we inherited from operation days years ago.

7:38As we look to that development effort, we also probably need to do a work there. So those are a whole mix of things that will be in consideration for the drill program next summer. Aaron Shaw, thanks to speak with Mining Stock Daily. Glad to be here. Appreciate the chance to talk about my favorite project.

7:59Aaron Schutt: 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.