Scorpio Gold Charts US Capital Access & Broader Manhattan Vision Post-Nasdaq Debut

0:14Zayn Kalyan: Welcome back to Mining Stock Daily. Ian Wagner here with a corporate update from our friends at Scorpio Gold. Scorpio is a gold developer in Nevada, currently developing the Manhattan Gold District. They have a previously published maiden resource estimate of 740 ,000 ounces of gold and are in the midst of a 50 ,000 meter drill campaign for calendar 2026. And as of a week or two ago, they trade on the TSX venture and on the Nasdaq capital market under the symbol SGLD. A lot of news to cover since we last spoke with Scorpio in August. And with us today is Zane Callion, CEO of Scorpio Gold. Zane, good to see you.

0:57Zayn Kalyan: Welcome back to the podcast. Thanks, Daniel. Great to be here. And yeah, very happy to provide an update. It's been an exciting couple past months since we last spoke. And I think the market's got lots of questions and I'm happy to be able to be here to be able to provide an update. Yeah, absolutely. A lot of news. You guys ended the summer a little bit with a bang. Why don't we just start first kind of start talking about the new listing? You know, you had mentioned, I think when we spoke over the summer, you wanted to list the ADRs on the NASDAQ that did happen maybe, I'll say, a week, 10 days ago.

1:29Zayn Kalyan: A little bit of volatility around that. Just kind of talk about, I guess, one, what you've seen since then, and then maybe two, just kind of happened on what happened on the day of. Yeah, so the NASDAQ listing was something that we were very focused on achieving. I think being a U.S. company with a U.S. asset, it's been a U.S. focused company with a U.S. asset. It does provide us the ability to get access to a much wider pool of capital. People often say that Canada has a tenth of the people, but a hundredth of the capital of the U.S. And I think being able to access the U.S. capital markets with an asset like Manhattan is kind of critical to our future.

2:11So very happy that we got that complete. there was to your point a lot of volatility on the day of the listing and there's been volatility since then and I think we were caught a little off guard by the arbitrage opportunity that was presented by the ADR listing there was obviously a very short amount of supply of the ADR on listing and it looks it appears that some external investors or third-party investors took advantage of that and that resulted in an immense amount of price depreciation and also depreciation immediately thereafter. Well, what I'd say is like, I want to get across the market two things is, we didn't have any involvement in that.

2:50It was something that was completely out of our control. Management of the company remains incredibly steadfast committed to the future of this company where we're all like, we are fully engaged in where we're going to take this. And we continue to put everything we have into development and moving Manhattan forward and and Scorpio forward. I think one of the, call it benefits of the price appreciation or how the volatility that's come out of the US listing is we did move a lot of stock from Canada into the US. So there is a lot more stock in the ADR today. And it's very positive, I think. I think it allows us to trade on a much better liquidity profile in both markets.

3:31Our average daily volume has both increased in both markets significantly. and I think that's great for investors I think at the same time there's obviously the US market is an entirely different ballgame there's a lot of algorithmic trading and things that can affect your price both positively and negatively but I do truly believe that if we continue to execute on the same cadence of how we've been executing delivering drill results to the market at the same level of quality that we have been and then ultimately working towards our goals of expanding this resource putting out an updated MRE and early next year, and then continuing to work towards development of Manhattan, the market will reward us.

4:12And I think any incremental price appreciation in either market will be further exemplified and further amplified with that ability to be trading and have that exposure to the U.S. investor. So I think it's been an interesting road and a very interesting learning experience. We were one of the first three Canadian companies to complete an ADR cross list. using MJDS on the US market. And I'm very happy that we did it. I would have no regrets. But I do concede that there are some risks associated with it, but I think ultimately everyone will be rewarded. All of our shareholders will be rewarded by upward price appreciation as we continue to execute the way we happen.

5:00Zayn Kalyan: Talking about execution, You guys released drill results earlier this month. More holes from Gold Wedge and Zanzibar. Zanzibar, of course, is right next to the Reliance trend. Gold Wedge just a little bit off north there between Zanzibar and Black Mammoth or Reliance and Black Mammoth. A few holes I want to highlight and then allow you to kind of fill in some color on just what you're seeing and how this drill campaign is progressing. So hole 115 gold wedge, 3.2 grams over 48.92 meters, 5.14 grams per ton gold over 10 meters. Hole 18 at gold wedge, 1.19 grams per ton over 99.9 meters. And then hole 116 from Zanzibar, 0.93 grams per ton gold over 22 meters.

5:49Zayn Kalyan: you noted that the thing that stood out and what the market is appreciating is is scale and grade right I want to know kind of what you guys what you saw in this and how it's just advancing your understanding of the model and your goal to get to that two million ounces yeah so so gold wedge has been been very uh definitely the drilling that we've been doing a gold wedge has been very positive. It's definitely increased our structural understanding of the deposit. And I'd also say that we've been fortunate to upgrade blocks that we previously had understood to be of lower grade. And I think that also informs some thoughts about what the development opportunity of the overall project as a whole looks like.

6:40There may be a scenario where we can leverage the gold wedge underground to create a startup scenario while we're permitting the larger pit on the Manhattan side. And originally, the model or the current pit model is pitting out the Gold Wedge Underground and the Manhattan pits and basically building one mega pit. But maybe in the shorter term, there is a scenario with this high grade that we can leverage the existing infrastructure, the existing underground infrastructure that we have to mine that, mine the high grade in the shorter term, creating startup capital to then fund and build out the much larger pit.

7:15Now, these are all early discussions and early concepts. It's just what I'd say is that the opportunities and our understanding are being informed by the kinds of grades that we're hitting, adding, being very added to the resource as well. It's just all of these results are positive and it's just kind of been our target. And that's one of the reasons that we currently are drilling in the gold wedge area.

7:39Zayn Kalyan: Yeah, maybe worth it just to remind people kind of what the what what you're permitted to do underground there at gold wedge yeah so it is a permitted underground portal um it's it's fairly extensive it was it does remain fully permitted in care and maintenance so um it can be leveraged for for mining okay okay and and yeah just note i mean so you mentioned some of those were within zanzibar some within the the caldera uh volcanics i'm just curious kind of how your how that's fitting into kind of the current drill plans because I know we've talked about it a little bit off and on over the spring and summer, and you guys were very happy and pleased with what you were finding there in the caldera and kind of, you know, seeing similar things to what Kinross has up there at Round Mountain.

8:24Zayn Kalyan: Are the calderas still drilling priority? Where are the drill rigs today? Yeah, for sure the caldera is still priority, and a lot of the drilling that we've actually been doing at Gold Wedge is drilling through the Gold Wedge underground in, call it Gold Hill and Zanzibar. and then drilling into the caldera, into the volcanics, and into the caldera margin, and then into the volcanics. And we did hit mineralization. If you look at the bottom half, I believe that was hole, I'll tell you the ID, hole 115. That bottom 5.1 grams over 10 meters, that was in caldera volcanics. So it's great. But we're very encouraged that we're continuing to see that mineralization in those volcanic units.

9:15And it still remains a big focus of where we're drilling today. So we're still drilling in that same gold wedge area. We have a hole pending at Black Mammoth as well. But maybe this is a good opportunity to kind of talk about, we've been immensely focused for this entire campaign, they'll call it nearly 40 ,000 meters that we've drilled since last May. in the core resource area, the core 1.8 kilometers, the strike. The first step out of that was towards Black Mammoth, and we did do some drilling at Black Mammoth. We are somewhat limited in some of the drilling that we can start to do at Black Mammoth and to the north in Hooligan with the permitting that we currently have.

9:58So we are in the midst of trying to obtain a plan of operations on Forest Service ground that will allow us to have a full attitude to basically be able to drill wherever we want. And Black Mammoth is somewhat limited today in where we can drill. We've kind of drilled as much as we possibly can, as efficiently as we possibly can with the patented private land that we have there. To be able to further step that forward, we really do need this plan of operations. That said, April Fool's and Keystone Jumbo are other areas where we do have permitting accessibility. And that's where we're kind of turning some of our focus because at the end of the day, I think we've been very, our drill campaign has been successful.

10:42We've been, the 40, nearly 40 ,000 meters that we drilled has been very focused in that core area and we built ounces. But to really demonstrate the scale to the market of how big Manhattan can be, I think I still to this day do not believe that the market really realizes what we're working on here. We've been focusing on that 2 million ounce target in just 1.8 kilometers of strike. We have a much larger system here. We have eight and a half kilometers of structure with five historic resources. None of those five resources are included in the current MRE. And those five historic resources are nothing to look down upon.

11:18They are significant ounces and tonnage with high grade. And yes, they are historic and they're non-compliant, but they do give us confidence that there is economic mineralization in these areas, potential economic mineralization in these areas. I can't say necessarily it's economic until we actually make them compliant. But yeah, there are areas that we're very focused on. And I think delivering success with the drill bit at April Fool's, delivering success with the drill bit at Keystone Jumbo, delivering success with the drill bit at Black Mammoth and at Hooligan, which are down the line, all of those things collectively will demonstrate that we are not just chasing 2 million ounces.

11:59We believe that this is a much larger, truly district-scale opportunity. And I think the market still discounts that. I think the market does not appreciate that those resources are indication that this is something much larger. And you put that all in the context of a sitting 10 miles south on the other end of a caldera, that's a, you've got a 15 plus million ounce mine. I'll have to caveat that mineralization around that is not indicative of mineralization in our project. But just putting it in that geologic context and geographic context, it just, it's very encouraging. And I think we need to demonstrate to the market that this is that much bigger and delivering success with the drill bid on these peripheral targets.

12:41Black Mammoth kind of being immediately peripheral, but starting to hit at April Fool's, starting to hit at Keystone Jumbo. Those things will show this is much larger and can get much bigger.

12:52Zayn Kalyan: So my question there is twofold. I mean, one, when do you expect to be able to drill that at Black Mammoth? Is that a this year thing or is that going to bleed over into 2027? Our hope is by the end of this year. I can't talk definitively yet. We are still working through timelines. But what I'd say is April Fool, we're intending on drilling at April Fool here imminently in the next week. Keystone Jumbo, hope to provide an update to the market here imminently on timing there, but we're getting very close to Keystone Jumbo as well. Yeah, so I mean, you talk about kind of the market not understanding the scale and you have these satellite targets plus outside of the core research.

13:31Zayn Kalyan: How do you communicate to the market and make them understand? And then two, how do you sort of cadence your activity, specifically around your drill program and the number of drills, to get to where you want to be? Is it simply just a matter of time or is it something where you strategize? What can you guys do internally to sort of make the market understand? Yeah, I think maybe we haven't done as good of a job as we could have. in communicating our exploration strategy. And what I would say is that maybe our exploration strategy has been a little bit, I don't want to say erratic, but it's had some shifts.

14:13And those shifts have been as a result of permitting limitations and some ability to basically move the drill where we want to be. And then also been informed by results too, right? So like we get results and we kind of adjust our program on that basis. But I do appreciate that maybe we haven't done as good a job of communicating why we have drills focused on where they are. As I said, the core resource area has been the core focus. That's where we have seen low-hanging fruit because it is where we have the best geologic understanding. We have the most amount of results there. But I think we've demonstrated through results the kinds of grade and the level of mineralization that exists.

14:51And we've got a much better structural understanding of, call it the Manhattan core, or now we term Manhattan Central, But ultimately, we do need to do a better job of communicating where we're moving the drills next and what is the roadmap of demonstrating future scale. So even in my mind, like we've been talking about this, and we do intend to kind of put out an updated exploration strategy update to the market that's a little bit more public, has a lot more detail as to how we're going to step things out moving forward. and then ultimately where we're going to take this. Like we have some very clear ideas as to how we can scale this 2 million ounces and beyond.

15:31And again, grade being the core differentiator for the current Manhattan resource amongst our peers, amongst other assets in Nevada, and being so critical to how we've developed this further and how we build something out that's at much larger scale.

15:46Zayn Kalyan: Yeah, I'm glad you hit on that because I think it can be difficult for people to sort of understand or connect the dots, right? Because there's a lot of targets on your property and there's a lot of drill results and there's a lot of different just terms that maybe people, if they're coming in and they haven't visited in a little while and you're seeing Jumbo and Black Mammoth and Hooligan and stuff, and you're not quite sure what to make or visualize this. So I think that would be quite helpful for people. I just want to pivot a little bit to some news you guys put out just yesterday or just this week regarding some of the tailings and sonic drilling and sort of your metallurgical program to just kind of evaluate your opportunities there?

16:27Zayn Kalyan: What exactly are you looking at doing with some of those waste facilities? Yeah, so the press release we put out yesterday was announcing the sonic drill program and metallurgical study that we are conducting on the old Manhattan tailings. We have a general idea of the volumetric size and tonnage of what's there based on pre-mining and post-mining LIDAR and top topography. We can't publicly disclose that because we don't have an idea of what the quality, we don't have an idea of what grade looks like today. But that is the intention of this program. So it is mine material. It sits primarily on patented and BLM ground.

17:16So from our perspective, we have a general call it back of the envelope idea based upon historic mining mining records and production records and then recovery records of what the potential grade of those tailings can be and you have a leech pad a low-grade stockpile and multiple waste dumps there could be a lot of grade and potential value in that and not only is that ounces that are additive to a resource, but they're very economic ounces because it's my material. So there's no blasting. The permitting process is relatively straightforward. And we kind of indicated in the press release, the idea of toll mining it, of toll milling it.

18:00I think it's from our perspective, like there's two ways to look at that. Like toll milling has some short-term cashflow potential, but obviously that's also, you're giving up some, you're giving up revenue. You also need a toll mill that's willing to take your material. So we kind of have to like consider all the opportunities But that's, I think just from a purely economic standpoint, looking at what a startup scenario for Manhattan could be, if we can define high grade or sorry, maybe not high grade is not the right word, but economic grade ounces of mine material in those tailings, it makes a very compelling case economically for startup.

18:38So it's a relatively fair investment to understand this. It's not a huge amount of money that we're putting into it. It's a very fast program. The drilling is a 20-day drill program to drill 32 holes. And that will give us a lot of data to really understand what potentially could be there. So it's a low-hanging fruit in our minds. I think it's getting an understanding of what's there has the potential to really be transformed in terms of economics and what the future development plan for the mine looks like. So it's definitely worth it. And I hope that we will have some great results from it here in the coming months.

19:19Zayn Kalyan: Yeah, so I mean, you talked about optionality there with that, potentially with the underground at Gold Wedge. I mean, you have a lot of potential near-term options for cash flows you look to maybe, you know, offset some costs of CapEx or early Earthworks or long lead items. Um, do you, what is the next step for that on those, on that Sonic? And when do you think kind of you'll be able to kind of come back to the market with, with, with, uh, information there? Yeah. So our intention is to have the drill out there in the next couple of weeks. And, um, I hope that we will have the, uh, results, um, at least preliminary results here before the end of the year.

19:57Zayn Kalyan: Well, listen, Zane, this has been a great update. You guys have a lot of stuff going on. You're entering a conference season. I know you'll be out in Beaver Creek next week here. And we'll just look to catch up with you as the drill comes back. And I think it definitely, maybe you and Harrison can come on, talk about this sort of long-term strategic vision for the drill campaign and how you're going to build this out. Yep. We're very happy to be back and provide an update. I think the market's been looking, has had a lot of questions since the U.S. listing. So I'm happy that we got to do this today.

20:30And yeah, we're going into conference season. We're going to have a lot more news and we'll be speaking much more here in the coming weeks.

20:39Zayn Kalyan: Looking forward to it. Thanks so much for coming by, Zane. Great. Thanks, Ian. That is Zane Callian, CEO of Scorpio Gold. They trade now on the NASDAQ and the TSX venture under the symbol SGLD.

20:58Zayn Kalyan: 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 and connection with the material presented herein please do your own research or speak with a licensed financial representative