Kirkland Lake Discoveries CEO on Mirado's 'Shatter and Fill' Mineralized Footprint and the Push Into MZ Zone

0:00Thank you.

0:30Kirkland Lake is located in the Abitibi, the world's largest gold-rich greenstone belt, with over 300 million ounces of gold discovered to date. Stefan Stapowicz is CEO. Stefan, welcome to Mining Stock Daily. Thanks for having me, Michael. Happy to be here. So you closed the Murado acquisition in the spring, Stefan. Murado is a past producer and has a historical resource. In your most recent video, you said that the key takeaway was growth. So big picture, what are you seeing at Murado? Yeah, it's definitely all about growth right now. The key things are extending that mineralization. We've basically taken it in every single direction.

1:10We've gone beneath the deposit. We've gone west of the deposit. We've gone north of the deposit. And now we're stepping out regionally. And it's starting to show the same signatures that we see in the rocks, the same alteration package, the same rock types, same mineralization. And so we're really hoping that this thing's going to grow exponentially with these regional step outs. Talk about the types of rock, because in your last news release, that was from last week, you were talking, I think you were talking about rocks as being shatter and fill. Yeah, so these are old, old volcanic rocks as all of the, or most of the rocks are in the Abitibi Greenstone Belt.

1:54So they have multiple phases of deformation and then in turn mineralization. And so what we're seeing is that these volcanic rocks at one point in time bent and then were filled with silica. And what that silica does is it hardens the rocks so that they rather than bend with further deformation, they end up cracking. And when they crack, they create these beautiful pathways for fluids. And in our case, these are gold rich hydrothermal fluids and they act as a really good trap. So we see areas where we have larger areas where those rocks have shattered and then in turn are filled in the future with gold-rich fluids.

2:36And that's exactly what we came across in these most recent drill holes. We ended up doing a hyperspectral imaging of the rocks, which has confirmed this style of mineralization that it is an orogenic system. And we're able to map that specifically based off of that alteration signature. So it's a really big finding, really big increase in understanding of the system. I think you also said that there's lots of pathways for mineralization as you kind of track out this project. Can you talk a little about that continuity or is there particular areas that you're focused on? So what we're seeing, so we ended up doing a high resolution MT survey over the entire area.

3:19that gives us multiple products, magnetics, conductivity, resistivity, as well as VLF. And from that, what we're seeing is wide areas where we're having that magnetic destruction, where we have these hydrothermal fluids coming through. The contact of the magnetic highs and magnetic lows are areas of big interest. And that was where MZ zone was really highlighted with our geophysics. So what we're seeing is kilometers of this geophysical signature, and that's what we're chasing down with these regional drill holes now. Talk about, I want to get to MC Zone because you did highlight, and I want to understand a bit about it, but maybe you could talk a little bit more because you also said there was something also about the rocks that you're getting back as well, too, that were actually pointing as good markers in terms of actually defining what you're targeting.

4:17yeah and that that's exactly it so with that signature uh with the the hyperspectral scanning that's what we're seeing is is this particular alteration signature and it's it's solicification combined with uh with with pyrite mineralization uh it has chloride in it has some epidote and the the hole that we did that on was hole four which was one of our most outstanding holes from our spring drill program. And what we're seeing is these exact same signatures in that MZ zone. So those same alteration fingerprints, the same style of mineralization, and it's 500 meters away from where we did that previous drilling.

4:59And so what we're hoping to see is that there's continuity between those two points. We're also hoping that that MZ zone is going to be well mineralized with gold. And if that's the case, then this is a much, much larger footprint of mineralization than anyone expected previously. What is the status with MZ right now? Is it being drilled or has been drilled or where are you? So we have six holes that have been put into MZ zone. They're basically set up right now as scissor holes. So we have going towards the northeast and then to the southwest um and so they're in a fence throughout the mz zone um and all of those holes are giving us the same mineralization style same rock types uh so it's a very good indication that we're on to another feeder system here or again this is a much larger feeder system that at the at the morato that extends these 500 meters to the west um stepping back uh i started at the top of the interview, we were talking about the fast pace.

6:03You did mention that you were doubling down, quote, compared to your peers. Can you talk about what particularly allows you at Kirkland in terms of actually being able to do that amount of work and also maybe talk about the cadence of the news as well? We have an incredible drill team with Shibugumu Drilling. They work really well with us in that they're they're almost partners in our exploration. And so we're able to have some flexibility on the number of drills that we're using. We currently have two drills spinning. A lot of our peers at this point in time have been almost panicking with this pullback that we've had in the markets.

6:43And we see this as a short-term seasonality thing. We still don't think any changes have happened with regards to the greater macro thesis of gold and precious metals in general, and expect to see you know, the money flowing back into the space come September. And we want to be set up the best way possible for that by getting as many of these regional holes tested. So we've been building our team over the last six months to be able to handle this amount of core. We've expanded our facilities. We actually purchased a new building that's a lot closer to the KL South land package. And then we're also utilizing these tools that allow us to log our core a lot faster, automated saw systems that are going to allow us to cut the core faster.

7:31And so we basically said, we know that this is a big system. We know that this is going to be expanded. And the time to do this is now, while we have good markets and that we're still in a bull market, it's just a little bit of a pullback at this point. But we want to make sure that when September hits, we have this consistent news flow that we have been putting out, but we're going to continue to do so all the way through that, you know, the new part of this next bull leg up. You announced in your most recent news release that you had a regional drill print that covers all of KL South. Does that change your drill program?

8:11Yeah, so we've been working on the step outs of the mineralized South Zone and north zone. We are really happy with what we're seeing. But one of the big things that we want to be able to tell the story of is the regional prospectivity of this. So our team has been doing regional prospecting across the entire KL South area with mapping, sampling, you know, prospecting in general. And so what we're using now is that information that we're gathering as well as this regional geophysics to be able to step out into these regional tests. And so we've moved away from expanding the zones, the north zone and south zone, and are putting more effort into these regional tests because that permit covers this entire area.

8:58And so there's been a lot of grabs at surface, historic and current that are indicating mineralization with some pretty serious gold grades. MZ zone is one of those where there was over 100 grams per ton at surface. and what we're doing is following up on these historical information and data points that have indications combined with our new interpretation of this geophysics and that allows us to make some more of these regional tests to show that this is a much larger scale than what it was previously. What's your cash position and will you need to raise anytime soon? As of our last financials, we were at$8.5 million.

9:39We've been drilling nonstop since that. And so we're probably closer to about five at this point. In the fall, we'll be looking to raise money to continue the pace that we're working at. Our last financing was done in October at 25 cents. All of those shareholders are very happy with the work that we've done. We've delivered every single thing that we said we were going to. And so we will have no problem recapitalizing at that point in time. with, like I said, a lot of happy shareholders. What's the status of your other assets, Kale and West? So Kale East and Kale West, they're earlier stage exploration projects.

10:21We did our initial drill program at Kale West this winter. Those results are taking much longer. We're using two different labs for the drilling at Kale South is done through Paragon, whereas ALS Geoanalytics was doing our KL West project. So we just have, I think, about one or two holes left to come back, and then we'll be doing a full update on KL West and that intrusive-related mineralization that we're seeing there. I guess just to emphasize as well is that you did announce a closing, I guess in early spring, of Morato, but it is an older asset because it does have the historical resource.

11:02Exactly. And there's a lot more information. There's a lot more data. There was IP done on it. There was a lot of drill holes, which we were able to have a very cohesive 3D model. And so you're just starting in a much further ahead point. The resource that's there was historical with 442 ,000 ounces. It was done in the early 2013, which was when the wheels were falling off. the junior space. And so they were just trying to bundle it up as fast as they can. But as we're showing, they haven't hit the edges of that system yet and we continue to expand it. And so we expect that we're going to, in the future, be able to update that resource in a significant way.

11:49Lastly, milestones over the next 12 months. When do you expect to get something from MZ? MZ is currently being teched and logged. our turnaround time is about 20 days now for results for assays from Paragon so I would expect that we would see that late August the first holes from MZ would be my expectation maybe into September if things slow down for whatever reason and you know with that the the additional regional holes will be coming out shortly after that so there's going to be no shortage of news flow in holes. I think we're up to 25 holes pending that have been drilled and those are continuing to grow on a daily basis.

12:33Stefan, thanks for speaking with Mining Stock Daily. Thanks, Michael. It was so much fun. 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.