Great Pacific Gold Ramps Up Wild Dog Drilling as Key Assays Approach

0:15Welcome back to Mining Stock Daily. It is Wednesday, November 4th. Ian Wagner here with a corporate update from our friends at Great Pacific Gold. They are a gold and copper explorer with their flagship Wild Dog Project in Papua New Guinea. They trade on the TSX Venture under the symbol GPAC and on the OTCQX with the symbol GPGCF. We have covered the Great Pacific story for some time, but it's been a few months since we've spoken with them. So I'm very pleased to welcome back in two senior leadership, senior executives. We have CEO, Mr. Alex Heath, and COO and VP of Exploration, Callum Spink. Guys, good to see you.

0:57Welcome back to the podcast. Thanks, Ian. Good to see you again. Thanks for having us. Yeah, absolutely. And I know, I appreciate the coordination. We're in three different parts of the world right now. Alex is in Vancouver. I am on the East Coast of the United States. And Callum is, are you in P &G or are you in Australia? I just got back from P &G, so I'm in Brisbane now. Okay, right on. Well, listen, guys, it's been a few months, a lot of exploration on the ground there, whether or not it's drilling at Cassie Ridge, Magiabi, Megmet. Kind of tell us, I guess, a little bit, just kind of paint the overall picture.

1:30Where are you guys at, what you've been doing, and kind of where things are at right now? Yeah, maybe I'll start and then I'll hand it over to Callum. I think the last time we spoke, it might have been Greg was the CEO at the time, and we've made a couple changes just to the management here. Greg has moved up to executive chairman. I've stepped up from CFO to the CEO role, and Callum has stepped up to the COO and VP exploration. So that really just sort of streamlines the management. Callum and I were sort of running the day-to-day operations anyways, and Greg is more focused on the board and strategy.

2:04In terms of what we're planning to do, nothing has changed on the ground. Our plans are still the same. We're just in the middle of our 14 ,000-meter drill program at our flagship Wild Dog project and moving essentially north to south with two drills on site right now. Maybe I'll hand it over to Callum here, and he can get into the granular details of what we're trying to achieve there. Yeah, thanks, Alex, and g'day, Ian. I think it has been a long time since we've given a bit of an update, so it's good to get back on the podcast and sort of talk about what we've been doing, because we have been, unfortunately a little bit quiet the last release we put out i guess since kavasuki was the cassie ridge release and now we put out uh you know that we confirmed a large magmatic hydrothermal system and gold bearing structures at cassie ridge so the listeners can go and have a look at that particular prospect now unfortunately we didn't yield uh an economic or you know seriously mineralized intercept on that particular drill program, but that was sort of never the intention.

3:09I mean, of course it was the intention, but it was never going to happen. We took the opportunity to drill Cassie Ridge, given that it's on the northern end of our structural corridor, and it proved that there's other potential types of alteration and mineralization structures here. So we're doing a lot of follow-up work on Cassie Ridge at the moment, but subsequently the drills have moved and as per the release this morning we've been we've been drilling we've been doing what we said we're going to do we've taken advantage of the dry season we've continued optimizing the drill rigs to test a series of high priority targets from kavasuki we moved a rig down to magiabi and uh we had done some you know we had put in that we had put out previous releases talking about the prospectivity of magiabi and why we wanted to drill it i think we've drilled 36 collectively across Maggiabi and Mengmut we've drilled 16 holes drilling over 3 ,600 meters across those two particular targets so we finished Maggiabi we didn't drill as many holes just due to some access issues but you know we put in a number of holes targeting the high-grade mineralization that we've seen at surface so there's five holes outstanding at Maggiabi and And now we're on our 12th hole at Mengmut.

4:35So we've finished the Maggiabi program. We're satisfied with what we've drilled there and just waiting for assays. And in fact, as per the release this morning, we've now put our drill rig on the El Maraca target, which again is another high grade, high priority target for us. So we have been quiet over the last four months. we've just decided to get stuck into it, take advantage of the dry season, try and crank out as many meters as we can into these high priority targets. And I think, hopefully, the assays will start coming in over the next month. And unfortunately, assays across the industry and PNG, everybody's suffering from Tolu to Aditon to us.

5:20There's been some big changes with the laboratory. And so we're, yeah, we're, we're suffering from assay turnaround, but you know, we have PXRF, we've got visual indications, most of the drill holes at mengma have all intersected veins. So we're pretty optimistic, um, uh, about all of the, all of the targets that we have, and we're going to continue to do what we're doing now until the end of the year. All right. So a few things to follow up on there. Um, and yeah, to your point, I mean, we're seeing assays delays across the globe, literally from people I talked to, It's sort of everybody got funded in the spring, including yourselves.

5:54Everybody drilled all summer. Everybody's waiting for essays. So I guess a few things. One, I guess I'll direct this for you, Callum, because you guys do have a lot of targets, right? Sinovite, Kavasuki, Cassie Ridge, Mengmit, Magyabi, and now moving to El Amaraka. I guess, how are you now thinking about this corridor in terms of your understanding that's grown across all the meters you guys have had this year? I know a lot of this earlier in the year was that early stage drilling that was trying to help refine this model. Talk to me a little bit about how you're understanding just the ground and what you guys have there.

6:37Yeah, no worries. Look, I think it's a little bit more complicated than we would have hoped. And that's always a good thing. And that's why many people have walked away not having understood the geology or the kinematics of the distribution of mineralization. So we see multiple instances of this high-grade mineralization all the way up and down this corridor. For me, my target still remains is identifying another northern sulfide zone. So the same mineralization that we see at Sinovit, that's close to surface, that's extremely high grade. You can remember back to last year where we were getting eight meters at 50 grand per ton gold equivalent with, you know, five, 12 % copper in some of the intercepts.

7:19So I'm aiming to replicate that as we go down. We know the structure continues, as I said recently, you know, on the Mengmut target, which has got some historical drill holes. We believe they were drilled the wrong way and so we've come in and we've you know we've we believe now we're drilling it on the right orientation we've drilled 11 holes there 2300 meters and 10 of those 11 holes have actually hit the structure where we predicted it with you know various amounts of silicification pyrite quartz carbonate sulfide veining so i'm you know i'm waiting for those assays with uh baited breath and so we've proved we know that the system continues because mengma is an example of that.

8:01Maggiabi is the same thing, albeit it looks to be a bit more structurally complex. And then we've just gone down again to Elamiraca, where we have high-grade outcropping mineralization. In fact, I was there a couple of days ago, and the guys had exposed the Elamiraca vein, which was about a 10-meter wide zone. Now, we don't have assays for it, but 10 meters of black high-grade sulfide material at surface and we're about to start drilling underneath that so i'm pretty excited any one of these could be another synovate you know there's a there's a few hundred thousand ounces at synovate at the sort of area where they took the oxide um during late 2000s and so i'm just aiming now is to just replicate that down down the corridor and we've got such a abundance of targets it's it's hard because you've got to weigh up you know the logistics of moving a rig through that type of terrain with also drilling your best targets.

8:58Yeah. Yeah. No, I think, and just a quick follow up and then I want to ask you something, Alex, but I mean, just maybe for people like myself who are not geologists, like when you say it's a little more complex, like Magiabi, is that just the rock you're seeing? Is it the depth? Is it something where you need, um, is it just the type of drilling that you're doing? Like what, uh, How does this kind of inform what you guys do moving forward, I guess? Yeah, well, look, we're learning. So I've mentioned many times on this podcast that we never inherited a good geological database. We never had the opportunity to review the old cork, because unfortunately it had been sort of vandalized and fallen into the jungle over 10 years of sitting there.

9:41So every drill hole that we drill is something that we learn from and trying to understand what's going on structurally. How does what we see in the drill bit translate to the more regional picture? What other faulting, what other late stage events have implications for the distribution of mineralization? How can we learn through every single hole to pick and be a lot more, to not waste any money through drilling, so understanding exactly what's going on. So, for example, Maggie Arby is very structurally complex. There's lots of late stage faults. There's some big regional structures that are running through that area.

10:22So trying to understand and put the mineralization together, whether it's uplifted or it's being displaced, there's all those things when I talk about sort of the structural complexity. And we see these across all types of epithermal systems as well. Occasionally you get the easy one, but most are complex. They've had, you know, multiple phases of mineralization, multiple sort of structural histories. and you've got to keep persevering with them and eventually they'll pay off. Alex, shifting over to you, you mentioned the management change with Greg Stan on as executive chairman. From your perspective, what do you want to accomplish?

11:01What do you feel like you bring to this role? And then I guess the equity has come down quite a bit since the summer. Now everybody's come off in the last few weeks, pretty brutal October for anyone in natural resources. But sort of how are you communicating the GreatPacks story out there now kind of in your role as CEO? Yeah, no, that's a great question. My approach is not going to be too much different than Greg's approach. Very systematic. You know, we want to execute on the drill program and we have the money in the bank to do that. I mean, as of last I checked, we had over 16 and a half million.

11:39So there's really no need to come back to market anytime soon. So what we want to do is just, you know, let the drills, you know, execute and let them do the talking, you know. So that's kind of what we're trying to do at this point is just, you know, let Wild Dog and the drills speak for themselves. And then from there, we can make a decision on what 2027 will look like. We've obviously got more areas that we can explore further to the south. in the south zone that we're continually going out there and prospecting daily to come up with new targets. But, you know, really what we need to do at this point is just get some assays back and, you know, bring some energy back into the stock.

12:17I guess on that note, I mean, since we talked about a little bit, what is that timeline? Is that still, do you think that's a Q4 thing or do you think that's going to slip into Q1 of 27 in terms of assays and getting everything back? Yeah, I think Callum had said, you know, in the next month or so, we got quite a few drill holes still in the lab right now, and we just haven't released those just yet. You know, as they come in, we want to do it all in one go. So those are coming soon in the next, call it three to four weeks. And then we're on to the EK and to other targets. So there'll be continuous news as we move forward here.

12:50It might slip into Q1, but that's kind of the goal right now. Give Callum drills and let him work, right? But I mean, are you guys, you talked about the dry season, Callum. I mean, are you guys able to keep drilling right now? Like you have still two drill holes on the ground. What does kind of the next eight weeks till the end of the year look like just from that program perspective? Yeah, well, unfortunately, we're now in a super El Nino. So the entire sort of equatorial region is suffering from pretty catastrophic droughts, to be honest, throughout PNG. We're lucky we're up on the mountain.

13:25So we do get the occasional rain where it does allow us to keep taking water from the sort of creeks up to the drill rigs. For the next few months, we've got a program of, as your listeners can see in the release, we've got at least sort of 2 ,400 meters planned at the EK zone. We're finishing off Mengmut. We've drilled far more than we had originally planned, and that's always a good thing. And then I've sort of changed it. we had previously mentioned that we were going to go and target an area called Morgan. Now, I've made the decision that it probably needs a little bit more geology to be done in that area, but we do have some other targets pretty accessible that sit in between the EK zone, Mengmu and Maggiabi, which we haven't really talked about.

14:12But again, they're known outcropping areas and or veins below clay caps that we're going to go and drill. So we'll put together a bit of a story there. But the plan right now for me is to drill until at least two rigs until the end of January and then to reassess. In conjunction with the drilling, again, we haven't come out and talked about too much of this, but you mentioned that we do have the regional team. So we have been doing a lot of work on the regional potential. We are zoomed into Cinevit and I would suppose that 85 % of our focus is around Cineva and the old mining area. But we've also got to be realistic with ourselves and look at the opportunity of the other targets that exist on our portfolio.

14:57Now, we've got at least six or eight other epithermal and porphyry targets that have had various stages of exploration. So we've been doing work to try and consolidate some of that data. We're out at the moment doing a bulk sediment stream sampling program, looking at taking over 100 to 120 different bulk sediments from all the sort of creeks and tributaries that these areas flow into. So that's going to give us a lot of really good and important information. The fact is, I think there's a tier one porphyry deposit as well as the epithermals here. So I want to sort of explore them both in conjunction.

15:33I want to be able to have lots of targets. So, you know, so we can continue to keep drilling, you know, into 2027, 2028. Okay. Okay. And you guys are funded up for that, it sounds like. You talked about those regional targets, but obviously, you know, Magiabi, Mengmit, close to Sinovet, Elamaraca, Cargalio, right there. We hadn't talked about that in the past and just why those two targets versus something else. What are you seeing there? What are you liking there? um you know what should what should people know about that as you guys drill that out yeah so we have put out some uh results previously in 2026 where we you know channel channel sampling at the elemaraca kagalia or ek target area you know came back with grades at 9 meters of 4.81 42 gram per ton silver and a little bit of copper including you know one meter up to 27 grams per tonne as well.

16:37And Cagallia was very much similar where channel sampling in the creeks returned six meters at 7.3 and various historical data. I've subsequently been down there recently. I think I just mentioned it before, but there's a 10 meter wide outcropping vein. Now it's apparent width, apparent width of surface, but it's very much got the same characteristics as Sinovit. It's that high grade sort of late stage high sulfidation mineralization, which brings in all the copper and the gold. So I'm being quietly confident we are drilling. I think if I can reproduce a result like we did at Cinevit and come out with an eight meters at 50 grand per ton, the stock's going to go flying.

17:20So the opportunity here to wrap all this up, the opportunity is that the share price has taken a hit. We are still drilling. We're doing what we said we were going to do at the beginning of the year. We've got a lot of assays outstanding and at least 16 to 20 jobs, which compared to last year's, you know, it hurts a little bit because we're having to make decisions based on visuals and PXRF. But the upside and the opportunity now is to get on board with GPAC. We've got the money in the bank. I've got a really good team. I've brought in new PhD level style geologists. We're doing a regional program.

17:57We're doing lots and lots in the background and I'm very excited. the next few months with news flow excellent listen well listen uh gentlemen i appreciate you coming by i mean alex just i guess one last one for you i mean yeah just kind of what is your kind of you know you know message to investors either long time ones or new listeners to kind of you know why gpac why now yeah you know i've been in this situation before you know share price down market not very good uh but money in the bank and and we don't have the assays out yet so i would say be patient. That's how you get rewarded in this business.

18:33We've got lots of exciting drill holes still to come. A great team, as Callum said, and a really good geological project here. So stick with us. I think you'll be handsomely rewarded. Awesome. Well, appreciate it, you guys. Appreciate that coming by and giving everybody an update. And we'll definitely look to catch up with you again here in the coming weeks as those essays come in. Thanks, Ian. Appreciate your time. Thanks, Ian. That is Mr. Callum Spink, VP of Exploration and COO of Great Pacific Gold, and Mr. Alex Heath, CEO of Great Pacific Gold. They trade on the TSX Venture under the symbol GPAC and on the OTCQX under the symbol GPGCF.

19:17The 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.